
Class. 
Book 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

AN EPISODE 



BY 

MATTHEW ARNOLD 



WITH 



An Introduction, Illustrative matter from the Shah Nama of 
Firdausi, and Notes 



BY 

MERWIN MARIE SNELL 




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CHICAGO NEW YORK 

Werner School Book Company 



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Copyright, 1896, by WERNER SCHOOL BOOK COMPANY 



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CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Introduction 5-17 

Bibliography 18 

Traditional History , 19-33 

The; Story of Sohrab 34-46 

Sohrab and Rustum: An Episode 47-78 

Notes 79-124 



INTRODUCTION 

Opinions are divided as to the relative merits of the poetical 
and prose works of Matthew Arnold ' ; but there is a large and 
growing number who look back with regret upon the hour 
when he abandoned poetry for criticism, even though that 
gracious type of culture whose essence is light and sweetness 
gained thereby its first professed apostle. 

Arnold published his first volume of verses in 1849, when 
he was twenty-five years of age. It bore the title A Stray 
Reveller and Other Poems, and was followed within three years 
by Empedocles on Etna and Other Poems. Both of these 
volumes were signed "A," and it was not until the j'ear 1853 
that the name of Matthew Arnold first made its appearance on 
the list of England's poets. A portion of the collection pub- 
lished in that year under his own name was reprinted from the 
earlier volumes, but it also contained several new poems, far 
superior to anything that had hitherto come from his pen. 
There were many who, from the first, recognized in these 
verses the touch of a master hand. Neither these nor the 
subsequent volumes 2 ever became popular in the wide sense 
of that word, and Arnold has remained to this day a poet of the 
schools, worshiped by a chosen few who belong to the inner 
world of culture, and also, it is true, by that larger circle who 
mold their tastes according to the accepted oracles of literary 
criticism, but never winning his way, like Tennyson, to the 
hearts of the people at large. Never for a moment was Matthew 
Arnold the poet tossed upon the foamy crest of a literary or 
emotional fad such as that which in later years caught up for a 
while his own gospel of culture, or that which has made his 



6 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

namesake Sir Kdwin Arnold the darling of an hour with 
the undiscriminating multitude that snaps its fingers at the 
maledictions of the reviewers. 

But amid all the fluctuations of popular and critical taste the 
appreciation of Arnold's poetical work has steadily increased, 
and it begins to appear as though he had achieved in this field, 
at least, one of those lasting reputations that give a true 
immortality. It is by no means improbable that he may still be 
admiringly studied when some whom we now consider greater 
poets have been relegated to that outer Limbo of fame which 
is the happy hunting ground of the antiquarian and the blue- 
stocking. 

Matthew Arnold is rightly held to have beeu in his literary 
creed a classicist, and in his religion a naturalist. But his views 
underwent a certain change, which is reflected in his poetical 
as well as his prose works, and in the style as well as the spirit 
of his poetry. Perhaps it would be truer to say that two 
'currents of thought and taste ran through all his life, one of 
which predominated in his earlier years and the other in his 
later. 

Reared by the celebrated Dr. Thomas Arnold, and educated 
under him at Rugby, he revolted against the Christianity even 
of so good a father and so broad a Churchman. He went 
through Oxford when the Tractarian movement was at its 
height, and was broadened and sweetened by it without yield- 
ing to its attractions; and he was still less influenced by the 
wave of scientific agnosticism amid which he found himself 
after he left the university. 

Between 1853 and 1865, 3 however, the spirit of Hebraism, 
as he called it — meaning the ideals, the world-outlook, as the 
Germans say, which we inherit from the Hebrew prophets and 
teachers through the Christian religion — reasserted itself in a 
measure, and in his best known essays (e.g., Culture and 
Anarchy, Literature and Dogma, published in 1869 and 1873,) 



INTRODUCTION 7 

his Hellenism — his glorification of the Greek ideals in thought 
and art and conduct — has ceased to be unreserved and intoler- 
ant. 

The change in his theory of poetic art is clearly marked. In 
the preface to the collection published in 1853, with which 
those to the second edition in the following j^ear and to 
Merope* in 1859 were in accord, he urged a return to classical 
models as the only remedy for the fantastic character and lack 
of sanity by which modern literature seemed to him to be 
characterized. 

He condemned subjectivism — the habit of dwelling chiefly 
on mental states and interior conditions — and expressly taught 
that the highest art is always objective, and that the only 
legitimate field of poetry is the narrative, the description of 
actions worthy to be described. 

But in his Essays in Criticism in 1865 he takes a broader 
view : 

' ' The grand power of poetry is its interpretative power, and 

that it develops in two wa}-s — by expressing with magical 

felicity the physiognomy and movement of the outer world 

and expressing with inspired conviction the ideas and 

laws of the inward world of man's moral and spiritual nature. " f 

Meanwhile his artistic intuitions or his soul's craving for ex- 
pression had outrun his colder thought, and one of the most sub- 
jective of his longer poems is also one of the earliest — Emped- 
*ocles on Etna, 6 which for this and other sins against the classic 
standards was excluded by its author from the collection of 1853. 

"After 1854," says the Edinburgh Review, 7 " all his poems, 
with the exception of Merope, which he wrote rather as a pro- 
fessor of poetry 8 than as a poet, show that, both artistically and 
morally, the exclusive domination of the classic spirit was 
overthrown. ' ' 

Taking the poetry of Matthew Arnold as a whole, it is 
divisible into two groups: the objective poems, which portray 



b SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

actions or events; and the subjective, which find their theme 
in mental processes or are the expressions of the sentiments of 
the soul. To the latter group, which is much the more numer- 
ous, belong his lyrical and meditative verses, and those charm- 
ing elegiac poems which some prefer to any other works of 
Arnold's pen. 

The objective or narrative poems themselves fall naturally 
into two groups, according as they are romantic or classic in 
their subject and style. In one, it has been said, he is a 
painter and in the other a sculptor. To the romantic and more 
ornate group belong Tristam and Iseult, 9 The Sick King of 
Bokhara and The Forsaken Merman. At the head of the 
classic group stand Sohrab and Rustum, and Balder Dead. 10 

As Arnold was a classicist and not a romanticist, and his 
own developed theory of poetry, modified but never abandoned, 
made the portrayal of heroic deeds the noblest function of the 
art, it cannot be disputed that Sohrab and Rustum, the master- 
piece of his poems of the classic and heroic type, is on the 
whole the most thoroughly representative of all his poetical 
compositions. 11 

It has also historical interest as the one poem which, more 
than any other, made good its author's claim to an honored 
place among the bards of modern England. It occupied the 
first pages of the collection of 1853, and was promptly recog- 
nized by the critics as a production of unusual merit and lasting 
worth. A writer in the Westminster Review for the first 
quarter of 1854 said of it : 

" It is remarkable for its success in every point in which 
Empedocles appears deficient. Homer has furnished him his 
model, and taught him the great lesson that the language on 
such occasions cannot be too simple and the style too little 
ornamented. Perhaps it majr be thought that he has followed 
Homer's manner even too closely. 

"Asa picture of human life in Homer's manner we cannot 
see why it should not be thought as good as any one of the 



INTRODUCTION 9 

episodes in the JEneid. We are not comparing Mr. Arnold 
with Virgil; for it is one thing to have written an epic and 
another to have written a small fragment; but as a working up 
of a single incident it may be ranked by the side of Nisus and 
Euryalus, and deeper chords of feeling are touched in it than 
Virgil has ever touched. ' ' 

It has been remarked that Sohrab and Rustum is almost the 
only poem in which Mr. Arnold has realized his own ideal of 
poetical composition. The highest poetry, he wrote, is that 
which depicts noble deeds and makes its appeal to the primary 
and permanent affections. It would be difficult for a poem to 
answer this description more perfectly than Sohrab and Rustum. 
It is here that we see in its perfection ' ' the exquisite and clear- 
cut accuracy of touch" which is the chief note of his style; 
that " subordination and finish of detail " in which, says the 
Lord Bishop of Derry, 12 he can only be surpassed by the great 
classical writers. 

One of the most appreciative tributes that has ever been paid 
to this "finest specimen of Arnold's Homeric manner" is from 
the pen of R. D. Stoddard: 13 

"The episode which it embodies is," he says, "one of the 
noblest that ever fed the imagination and vexed the soul of the 
poet. It is one of those great human actions that appeal to 
the great human affections, to those elemental feelings which 
subsist permanently in the race, and which are independent of 
time and place. He selected the most touching situation in 
the national epic of Firdausi, and recast it into English verse 
without sacrificing its Persian spirit. He reproduced his 
original with scholarly as well as poetical fidelity. To those 
who can read the recital of heroic actions without emotion it 
is naught; but to those who are capable of being moved with 
feeling and passion — the pathetic and tragic elements of life — 
it is the noblest poem in the world. It fulfills the old definition 
of tragedy, in that it awakens pity and terror, and it fulfills 
the highest definition of poetry, in that it is admirably planned, 
orderly in its development, transparently clear and vividly 
picturesque, manly, majestic, dignified, and, more than all, 



10 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

vital with human interest. Written in the grand style of 
Homer, there is a distinction in it which no other English nar- 
rative poem possesses." 

As important as is the position which must be assigned to 
this poem considered in itself, as a gem of English literature, 
it derives a very great additional interest and value from its 
subject matter, which is taken from one of the richest, and at 
the same time one of the least familiar, mines of story and song 
that the world contains, the literature of medieval Persia. 

Its very title reveals its origin in the great national epic of 
Iran, the Shah Nama, or Book of Kings, of Firdausi. It is, 
in fact, the last episode of the saga of Rustam and Sohrab, not 
translated or even paraphrased, but made the theme of an 
original poem in the classic style. It is necessary to remark that 
the reviewer last quoted errs in saying that Arnold has "repro- 
duced the original with scholarly as well as poetic fidelity." 
As may be seen by a comparison with Firdausi' s narrative 
(p. 34), he has departed from the original to an unaccountable 
degree, even as regards the setting in time and place, and the 
personal incidents of the story. Neither has he avoided the 
sacrifice of the Persian spirit; on the contrary he seems, either 
through lofty indifference or of set purpose, to have made no 
serious effort to preserve the local coloring of the episode. But 
this can be defended on the same principle which justified the 
Old Masters of Europe in depicting incidents of New Testament 
story in the midst of Italian or Flemish scenery. The poem is 
to be judged wholly from the standpoint of the literateur and 
not from that of the Orientalist. A better advised critic 14 says: 

"We do not doubt that the author of 'Sohrab and Rustum' 
and 'Balder Dead' has done wisely to disregard as accidental 
the national peculiarities of the literatures that have furnished 
his themes, and obtain the advantages of following the world's 
greatest epical model by assuming all the conceptions of the 
heroic age to be essentially similar. ' ' 



INTRODUCTION 1 1 

On the other hand, it is true that for all those circumstances 
which give the theme its rare beauty and pathos, as well as for 
the general movement of the tragic episode, Arnold has relied 
wholly upon the Persian bard. 

The story of Sohrab was handed down for many centuries in 
the folk-lore and the written chronicles of Eastern Persia, but 
the medium by which its details have been preserved to the 
knowledge of modern times is Firdausi's immortal poem. 

Firdausi is often spoken of as the Homer of Persia, since he 
was the first and greatest of its poets, and the author of the 
epic which embodies the traditions of its primeval age. Like 
Chaucer in England, Dante in Italy, and L,uther in Germany, 
he is in a sense the father of the living language of his country, 
and the resemblance between the spirit of his work and that of 
the Gothic romance has led many to compare him, with singular 
felicity, to Ariosto, in whose Orlando Furioso the medieval 
tales of European chivalry found at last a classic expression. 

It is customary in Persia for poets to receive a special 
soubriquet or name of honor, and Firdausi 15 is the poetical title 
of Abul Kasim Mansur (937-1020 A.D.), a native of Tus in 
Khorassan. 16 The Sultan Mahmud 17 of Ghazni 18 employed 
him to put into verse the traditional history of the kingdom of 
Persia, and he spent thirty years at his court while engaged in 
this colossal task, the result of which we have before us in the 
Book of Kings. 

Many sovereigns of the Sassanian dynasty 19 had interested 
themselves in the collection of materials for such a history, the 
national records having been destroyed or dispersed during the 
disorders of the preceding period, beginning with the over- 
throw of the old monarchy by Alexander the Great. Under 
the direction of Yezdegird IV, 20 the most learned of the 
mobeds, or priests of the national religion, 21 under the chief 
editorship of Danishber Dehkan, 23 made a final compilation of 
the annals of the kingdom down to the reign of Khosru Parviz 



12 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

(A.D. 591-628). Hardly had this been done when the inva- 
sion of the Arabs took place, and the Annals fell into their hands 
with much other spoil after the battle of Cadesia, in A.D. 636. 

The book was sent by the conquerors as a present to the king 
of Abyssinia, 23 who caused copies of it to be made and distributed 
among his friends in various parts of Asia; and thus in course 
of time it found its way back to Persia again. 

For several centuries after the Mohammedan conquest Persia 
was subject to the authority of the Caliphs, 24 who attempted to 
destroy all the monuments both of its ancient political inde- 
pendence and of its ancient religion ; but their authority became 
gradually weakened and the local governors one after another 
acquired the position of independent sovereigns. 

Partly from a pure love of learning and partly from a desire 
to strengthen themselves in the favor of the people, who had 
accepted Mohammedanism without forgetting their ancestral 
glories, many of these began to pick up the broken threads 
of the national tradition. 

Under such auspices, the old Chronicle of the Kings was 
translated from the Pahlavi 25 into one after another of the 
modern Persian dialects; and with the aid of a commission of 
learned Mazdeans (for a remnant of the people still remained 
faithful to their old creed) it was continued, by order of one 
of the Samanian 26 kings, down to the death of the last of the 
Sassanidse (651 A.D.). 

A growing love of elegant literature led in the tenth century 
to several attempts at the versification of episodes from these 
chronicles. The Sultan Mahmud ruled in the old kingdom of 
the hero Rustam, and his political astuteness and sincere love 
of letters led him, in spite of his Turanian extraction, to surpass 
all others in his zeal for the carrying out of the great project 
of preparing a new history of Iran in metrical form. To this 
end he spared no pains and expense in collecting materials 
supplementary to the prose history already in hand; offering 



INTRODUCTION 1 3 

liberal rewards to every one who would sell or lend to his 
librarians any manuscript which would be useful in the great 
work. Many especially important contributions were received 
from some of the noble families of Afghanistan 27 that claimed 
descent from princes and heroes of the olden days. 

For example, the family records of the royal house of Sei- 
stan, 28 to which Rustam and Sohrab belonged, were found to be 
still extant, and in the possession of a member of that family, 
Serv Azad of Merv, 29 who gladly put them at the disposal of 
the poet laureate. 

Firdausi recorded with scrupulous care the traditional data 
afforded by a study and comparison of the wealth of historical 
materials before him; and his epic was at the same time such 
a masterpiece of poetical genius that it immediately replaced, in 
the esteem of a people in whom the love of the beautiful pre- 
dominated over every other taste, the prose histories upon which 
it was based. Copies of these almost ceased to be made, and 
in the lapse of centuries the most important of them have been 
wholly lost, or, if they exist at all at the present day, are hidden 
in obscure places which have not yet yielded up their treasures 
to European manuscript collectors. The Shah Nama is therefore 
the most precious repository of the historical traditions of 
Persia. The value of these traditions is attested by their gen- 
eral agreement, when properly understood, with the information 
on the subject obtainable from other sources. 

The Persians always call themselves Iranians, and their 
country Iran; the word Persia applying properly only to the 
present province of Farsistan, the Persia Proper of antiquity. 
The Persian traditions similarly are, or profess to be, the tra- 
ditions of the whole Iranian race, which is spread over modern 
Persia, Afghanistan, Southern Turkestan 30 and Beluchistan. 31 
Modern Persia includes the ancient Media, 33 as well as Farsistan, 
or Persia proper, but does not extend over the region around 
the Oxus 33 river and the Hindu Kush Mountains, 172 which was 



1 4 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

one of the earliest homes of the Persian people, and which 
may be said to correspond roughly with the ancient Bactria. 3 * 

The Bactrians, Medes and Persians recognized themselves 
as belonging to a single race, which they called the Aryan, and 
we now know that there was a time when their ancestors 
formed an undivided people and occupied a land in Central Asia, 
known to them as Iran. From thence some of their tribes 
wandered over the mountains into the fertile plains of the Indus 
river, and became the ancestors of the Aryan Hindus, 85 while 
others went westward to the region around the lower end of 
the Caspian Sea (Media) and still others established themselves 
on the shores of the Persian Gulf (Persia). 

Iran, whether in the original local sense of the country be- 
tween the Jaxartes and the Hindu Kush, or in the broader 
modern one of the whole territory in southwestern Asia occu- 
pied by peoples of the Aryan race, 36 has from the beginning of 
its history been harrassed at frequent intervals by invasions of 
Mongoloid 37 peoples, pouring down across the Oxus from the 
northern steppes 38 or the mountains of Mongolia. 39 

This region is called by the Persian tradition Turan, and the 
conflict between Iran and Turan is the dominant theme of the 
heroic legends which Firdausi records. 

This conflict had something more than a local import. It is 
a part, and a very important part, of the tremendous struggle 
which has been going on for several thousands of years between 
two great world races and two rival civilizations. On the 
one hand is the Caucasian stock, especially the Aryan or Indo- 
European race, to which the European nations belong; on the 
other is the Mongolian or Uralo- Altaic race, often called, with 
reference to this very cycle of tradition, Turanian. The Aryan 
and Semitic tribes seem to have wrested from Turanian abor- 
igines most of the land which they have occupied. But in 
return the Turanian hordes have again and again swept over 
southern Asia and Eastern Europe, and during a large portion 



INTRODUCTION 



J 5 



of the historic period have held sway over some of the noblest 
of the Caucasian races. Among the Turanian invasions best 
known to European history are those of the Scyths, 40 who 
possessed themselves of Asia Minor in the seventh century 
B.C.; the Huns," who invaded Europe in the fifth century of 
the Christian era; the Turks, 42 who began the conquest of the 
Levant in the eleventh century, and ultimately reared the 
present Ottoman Empire on the ruins of the Byzantine; the 
Mongols, 43 in the thirteenth century, who under Genghis Khan 
established one of the vastest empires that ever existed, 44 and 
the Tartars 45 in the fourteenth century, under Timur, 46 whose 
descendants founded the magnificent Indian empire. 47 From 
the fifteenth century to the eighteenth the ascendancy of the 
Turanian tribes was firmly established throughout the whole 
continent of Asia and the adjacent portions of Africa and 
Europe; but now the tide has turned again. 

The conquest of India by the French and British, and of 
Siberia by the Russians, and the gradual closing in of these 
and other Christian powers around the constantly diminished 
territory of the Turkish and Chinese empires, is but another 
chapter in the same old story of the never-ending contests of 
Iran and Turan for political supremacy. 

The most profound students of the Shah Nama have recog- 
nized in it a number of independent cycles 48 of history and 
legend, the most important and interesting of which is the 
Cycle of Seistan, which consists of the history of Rustam, king 
of the Sacae, and his ancestors. 

This cycle is the heart of the whole epic, and its most admira- 
ble element is the tale of the brief and unfortunate life of 
Sohrab. The Persians themselves esteem the story of Rustam 
and Sohrab more than any other portion of the poem, and the 
scene of the death of Sohrab, in which it culminates, is the 
same which Firdausi's most important rival, Ansari, once ren- 
dered into verse as a specimen of his powers in the competition 



l6 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

between the seven chief poets of MahmM's court for the great 
commission which, afterwards awarded to the newcomer 
Firdausi, was so brilliantly accomplished by him in the produc- 
tion of the Shah Nama. 

European critics agree with the Asiatic in their estimate of 
this part of the epic. The elegant French essayist, Sainte- 
Beuve, says of it: 49 

" The most celebrated episode of the poem, and one which is 
of a nature to interest us still, has for its subject the meeting 
of the hero Rustam and his son Sohrab. This is a beautiful 
and touching story, which has traversed the world, and flowered 
out in numberless ballads in every land. Many poets have 
handled it in their own way, or invented it anew, down to 
Ossian 50 in his poem of Carthon, and Voltaire in his Henriade. 
Voltaire assuredly had not read Firdausi, but he had the same 
idea, that of a father encountering his son in a combat and kill- 
ing him before recognizing him. The thought of Voltaire is 
wholly philosophic and humane; he wishes to inspire a horror 
for civil war. Firdausi in his recital drawn from tradition is 
far from having had so explicit an intention; but it is safe to 
say that if, after reading this dramatic and touching episode, 
this adventure full of colors at first, and perfumes, and finally 
of tears, one chances to open the eighth canto of the Henriade, 
one feels how great is the height from which the epic has fallen 
among moderns; and an impression is experienced such as 
would be produced by passing from the Ganges river to a pond 
at Versailles." 

Mr. Arnold's poem based on this crowning episode of the 
Iranian epic will serve, we trust, to whet the appetite of the 
student for the reading of the Persian sagas themselves, which 
have been rendered in various forms into several of the princi- 
pal European languages. 

No person of culture can any longer afford to be ignorant of 
the Shah Nama, now that it is so readily accessible, for it is one 
of the great epic poems of the world, belonging to the same 
class with the Nibelungenlied of Germany, 51 the Mahabharata 63 



INTRODUCTION 1 7 

and Ramayana 53 of India, and the Iliad and Odyssey of Greece. 
It has all the vigor of the sagas of northern Europe, but shot 
through with the golden lights of a southern sun, and softened 
by the touch of a higher culture. The roots of the earlier 
cycles of myth and hero-lore out of which it is built up run 
back mysteriously into the distant splendors of that age which 
produced the first hymns of the Avesta 54 and the Veda, 55 and 
from these an unbroken tradition brings us forward into the 
light of authentic history. 

As for Rustam himself, its most prodigious hero, his story is 
as sublime and impressive as those of the other great characters 
of heroic legend, and contains more historical elements than 
most of them. From every point of view he deserves as high 
a place as Achilles, or Ulysses, or Siegfried, 56 or Roland, 57 or 
the Cid, 58 or Rama, 59 or Perseus, or even Hercules himself. 
In some respects he resembles Siegfried more nearly than any 
of the others, but he is a figure vastly more significant, 
whether we consider the unique importance of the theatre of 
his activity, or the greater antiquity of the age at which he 
is reputed to have lived. 






BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Translations of Shah Nama: 

James Atkinson. Prose. Down to the death of Rustam. — English. 
Julius Mohl. Prose. Complete, from Paris edition. —French, 1876-78. 
Schack. Verse. Down to the death of Rustam. — German, 1865. 
F. Riickert and E. F. Bayer. Prose. Complete, with scholarly 

annotations. — German. Berlin, 1890. 
Italo Pizzo. Verse. Complete.— Italian. Turin, 1886-89. 
Paraphrases and Abridgments of Shah Nama: 

Das Heldeubuch von Iran. J. Gorres. Berlin, 1820. 

The Book of Kings Stories retold from Firdausi. Helen Zimmern. 

New York, 1883. 
Collateral Historical Sources: 

The Zend-Avesta. Sacred Books of the East, vols. IV, XXIII, 

XXXI: London, 1880-87. 
Pahlavi Texts. Sacred Books of the East, vols. V, XVIII, XXIV: 

London, 1880-84. 
Records of the Past (Inscriptions), second series, vol. V, pp. 144- 

176. London. 
Encyclopedia Britannica, article Persia (based on classic historians; 

by Noldeke, one of the greatest and most recent authorities). 
Les Perses. By the Comte de Gobineau (containing copious extracts 

from historical literature in modern Persian and Arabic lan- 
guages). 
The Kings of Persia. By Mirkhond (Persian historian). 
History of Persia. Sir James Malcolm. 
Geography and Ethnology: 

The Earth and its Inhabitants (Geographic universelle.) Asia. 

Elis£e Reclus. New York. 
Encyclopedia Britannica, articles: Asia, Mongols, Siberia, Turks, 

etc. 
Popular Treatises on Persian Literature: 

The Rose Garden of Persia. Louise Stuart Costello. London, 1888. 



18 



THE TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF IRAN 
FROM THE BEGINNING TO THE DEATH OF RUSTAM 
ACCORDING TO THE SHAH NAMA 60 

The first to sit upon the throne of Iran was Kaiumers, 61 who 
lived in the mountains and clad himself and his people in tiger 
skins, but taught them the first rudiments of civilization, and 
was master of the whole world. Then the Evil Spirit, Ahri- 
man, sent out his son, a mighty Div, 63 to destroy Kaiumers. 
Siamak fi3 , son of Kaiumers, led a great army against the 
Divs, but he was defeated and slain. 

Thereupon the king sent forth his other son, Hushang, and he 
was victorious. Shortly after this Kaiumers died and Hu- 
shang 64 ascended the throne. He reigned forty years, and taught 
men the use of fire, and the arts of agriculture and irrigation. 

He was succeeded by Tahumers, 65 who introduced the arts 
of spinning and weaving, and conquered the Divs, some of 
whom purchased their lives by imparting to him the art of 
writing. 

After a reign of thirty years Tahumers died, and was suc- 
ceeded by his son Jemshid, 66 who reigned for seven hundred 
years, and whose sway was acknowledged by Divs and angels, 
and even by the birds and beasts. He divided men into four 
classes, priests, warriors, husbandmen and artificers; and in 
his days the world was happy and death and sorrow unknown. 
He was the author of the calendar, and instituted the great 
feast of Neuroz, or New Year's Day, which is observed to the 
present hour. He also built great cities, with the aid of the 
Divs whom his fathers had subjugated, one of which was Per- 
sepolis. 



20 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

At last Jemshid's heart was lifted up in pride, and he caused 
his own image to be worshiped as God; and therefore many of 
the kings and nobles who were subject to him rose in rebellion 
and through their instrumentality he was delivered into the 
hands of King Zohak, 67 the son of Mirtas, who ruled over 
Thasis in the desert of Arabia. 

After Zohak had seated himself upon the throne of Iran he op- 
pressed the people, and favored iniquity, and caused two men to 
be slaughtered every day to feed the serpents that grew out of his 
shoulders, where he had once been kissed by the Spirit of Evil. 

But after a thousand years God raised up a deliverer for Iran, 
who was Feridun, 68 the grandson of Jemshid. The revolt 
against the tyranny of Zohak was begun by a blacksmith of 
Ispahan called Kava, the father of seventeen sons, sixteen of 
whom had been slain to feed the serpents on the shoulders of 
Zohak. He took the leathern apron 69 which he wore in the 
practice of his trade, and raising it aloft on the point of a spear 
led forth the people to Mt. Alborz to invite Feridun to deliver 
his people and ascend the throne of his ancestors. Feridun 
thereupon led the Iranian army across the Tigris, captured the 
tyrant's capital city in his absence, and afterwards defeated him 
and made him prisoner, binding him upon Mt. Demavend to 
die of exposure and starvation. 

Feridun ruled for five hundred years, and the land prospered 
under his wise and gentle sway. He took several wives who 
were of the race of Jemshid like himself, 70 and had three sons, 
among whom he at last divided his empire, giving to Selm 
the lands of Rum 71 and Khaver 72 in the west, to Tiir 73 the lands 
of Turan 74 and China, 75 and to Irij the land of Iran, 76 together 
with his own imperial dignity. But Tur and Selm revolted 
against their younger brother while their father was still alive 
and demanded that he should resign the imperial throne. At 
last Tur took advantage of a friendly conference to assassinate 
Irij . But the daughter of Irij married a hero 77 of the race of 



TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF IRAN 21 

Jemshid, and their son Minuchir 78 succeeded to his father's 
dignities. Then Tur and Selra gathered together their armies 
and invaded Iran, but after a long struggle Minuchir over- 
threw them, and both the rebel kings fell by his hand. 

Now about this time 79 the Paladin 80 Sam, who had hitherto 
been childless, had a son born to him, beautiful both in face 
and limb, and was greatly rejoiced thereat. But when he 
found that the hair of the child was white like that of an aged 
man, he was filled with rage, fearing the mockery of his 
enemies, and commanded that the child should be cast forth 
out of his house. 

The infant was laid at the foot of Mt. Alborz, 142 and when 
the Simurgh, 209 who dwelt on its summit, saw the child she 
seized it in her talons and carried it to her nest. At first she 
intended it as food for her young ones, but her heart being 
moved with compassion she told them not to hurt it but to 
treat it as a brother and to share with it their feed. After the 
child had grown up into a strong and beautiful youth, Sam 
heard of him, and, being repentant for his crime, sent forth his 
army to rescue him. They could not scale the heights, but the 
Simiirgh told the young man that the time had come for him 
to go back to his father Sam, the champion of the world. The 
youth was loath to exchange the nest of his kind foster-parent 
even for the splendors of his father's court, but the Simiirgh 
insisted upon what she knew to be for his good. So she gave 
him a feather from her wing, with instructions to burn it if at 
any time he should need her assistance, and then took him up 
and carried him to his sorrowing father's side. 

Sam received him with great delight, and clothed him with 
rich robes; and he called his name Zal, which means the Aged. 

When the Shah Minuchir heard of the adventure he sent for 
the youth and loaded him with presents, and bade his father have 
him carefully instructed in all the arts and virtues of the prince 
and the hero. 



22 SOH'RAB AND RUSTUM 

Zal made such rapid progress under the instructions of his 
father's sages that he soon became famous for his wisdom and 
his strength, and when Sam went forth to fight the Shah's 
battles he left his kingdom of Zabulistan 81 under the care of 
his son, who administered it to the admiration and delight of 
all his subjects. 

Once while Zal was making the tour of the kingdom he 
visited Mihrab, king of Kabul, one of his father's tributaries, 
who, though of the race of the serpent-king Zohak, was him- 
self a good and worthy man. While in Kabul he became 
enamoured of Rudaba, daughter of Mihrab, and, after having 
with great difficulty overcome the opposition of his father and 
the Shah of Iran to such an alliance, married her, and carried 
her back with joy to Seistan. That which had finally moved 
the Shah to give his consent was the prediction of his astrol- 
ogers that the son of Zal and Rudaba would be the greatest 
hero who had ever lived, and would raise the glory of Iran to 
the skies. When the wonderful child was born his mother 
named him Rustam, which means Delivered, and there was 
great rejoicing throughout the land. 

The boy soon began to show the qualities of a hero in an 
unexampled degree; and when he was only ten years old he 
overcame a mad elephant before which all the warriors of the 
court of Zabulistan shrank in dismay. 

In the meantime the Shah Minuchir died and was succeeded 
by his son Nader, 82 whose cruelties were such that the people 
begged Sam, king of Seistan, to overthrow the oppressor and 
set the imperial crown upon his own head. He refused to lift 
up his hand against the royal house, but went to the Shah and 
by his prayers and exhortations restored him to the path of duty. 

But Poshang, of the race of Tur, hearing that the Iranians 
were discontented with the government of Nader, bade his son 
Afrasiab make ready a great host for the invasion of their land. 
While he was engaged in preparations for this enterprise, he 



TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF IRAN 23 

was encouraged by the news that Sam was dead and that Zal 
was in Seistan occupied in building a tomb to his father's 
memory. The two hosts met in battle in the plains of Dehstan 83 
and after three days the Turanian army gained the victory. 
Afrasiab cut off the head of Nader the Shah, and proclaimed 
himself the Lord of Iran. 

Then the people sent messengers to Zal in Seistan, and 
begged for his counsel and assistance. By his advice they 
chose Zav, 81 the son of Thamasp, 85 of the blood of Feridun, to 
fill the vacant throne. Under Zav the Iranians drove out the 
men of Turan, and the Oxus was established as the boundary 
between the two lands. After a few years Zav died and Gar- 
shasp 86 his son reigned in his stead. His reign was also 
short, and after his death Poshang, seeing that the throne 
of Iran was again empty, sent Afrasiab 87 his son to take 
possession of the land. When the people looked for assistance, 
according to their wont, to the king of Seistan, Zal placed his 
son Rustam, 134 who had now grown to man's estate, at the head 
of the army. When they reached the shores of the river 
Rai, 88 a short distance beyond which the invading army was 
encamped, Rustam went, by Zal's advice, to the foot of Mt. 
Alborz, where lived the young prince Kai Kobad, of the 
race of Feridun, and invited him to come and assume the im- 
perial crown. So Kai Kobad, 89 with his knights, accompanied 
him to the Iranian camp, and was crowned there with great 
splendor amid the rejoicings of the whole people. Soon the 
two armies engaged, and the Iranians gained the victory, 
chiefly through the prowess of Rustam, who from that day 
forward was surnamed Tehemten, which means the "The 
Strong-limbed." Then a new treaty was made, re-establishing 
the old boundary along the Oxus. 

After reigning a hundred years Kai Kobad resigned his 
crown to Kai Kaus 90 . And the heart of Kai Kaiis was lifted 
up with pride like that of Jemshid, and he determined to under- 



24 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

take the conquest of Mazinderan, 91 the land of the Divs. Zal 
and the other nobles tried to dissuade him from the project, for 
they said that no man could excel the skill of the Divs who 
dwelt there, and even Jemshid in his pride had not dreamed of 
conquering them. But he would not heed their warnings, and 
prepared his army and marched into Mazinderan. They 
destroyed the first city which they reached, sparing neither 
women nor children, because they were of the accursed race, 
and possessing themselves of the gold and jewels and other 
spoil that they found there in abundance. Then the king of 
Mazinderan besought the assistance of the White Div, 92 and the 
latter by his magic arts smote the Shah and all his army with 
blindness, and sent them as captives to the king of Mazinderan. 

Kai Kaus in his misery found means to send a messenger 
across the borders of Iran to Zal, king of Seistan. Zal, who 
was now two hundred years old, sent his son Rustam to deliver 
his suzerain. 

Mounted on his horse Rakush Rustam went forth and, after 
a series of formidable adventures, encountered king Aulad, one 
of the tributaries of the king of Mazinderan, put his army to 
flight and made him a prisoner. Rustam spared his life and 
promised to give him the kingdom of Mazinderan on condition 
that he would guide him to the home of the White Div and 
the place where Kai Kaus and his warriors were held in captiv- 
ity. Soon Rustam encountered the army of Mazinderan and 
overcame it, taking the life of Arzang, 93 its general. Then, 
after releasing Kai Kaus and his fellow prisoners, he went forth 
to the place where the White Div dwelt, and, going into his 
cave, conquered him in a terrible hand-to-hand conflict and cut 
off his head; and with his blood he healed the blindness of the 
unfortunate Iranian warriors. The campaign ended with the 
defeat of the king of Mazinderan himself and the annexation of 
his country, after which Rustam begged the Shah's leave to 
return to his father in Seistan. 



TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF IRAN 25 

Kai Kaus one day determined to visit the various coun- 
tries in his vast empire, which extended from China to 
Egypt. While he was so engaged the Egyptians and the 
people of Hamaveran 9 * revolted against Iran; but they were 
soon defeated, and the king of Hamaveran laid down his arms 
and asked pardon for his disloyalty. The Shah granted his 
petition, and afterwards, by the advice of his counsellors, took 
to wife Sudava, his daughter, who was very beautiful. The 
king of Hamaveran very unwillingly let his daughter go, and 
shortly afterwards, while the Shah was feasting with him, 
caused him to be seized, with all the nobles who were with him, 
and imprisoned them in a lofty fortress by the seaside. 95 Sudava 
refusing to be separated from her husband her father threw her 
into the same dungeon. 

When Rustam heard the news he led an Iranian army against 
the king of Hamaveran 96 and his allies, the kings of Egypt and 
Berber istan, and defeated them with great slaughter. After 
delivering Kai Kaus from his captivity he took the field against 
Afrasiab, now king of Turan, who had been laying waste the 
land during the exile of its king, and overcame him and drove 
him out of the country. 

It is at this point in the epic that the episode of Rustam and 
Sohrab occurs, for which see pp. 34-46. 

It was only when Rustam heard that an heir had been born 
to his over-lord, Kai Kaus, that he roused himself out of his 
sorrow for Sohrab. His first act was to go to the king's court 
and ask to be allowed to bring up the boy and teach him all the 
warlike and princely arts which his rank required. He kept 
him with him for some years, and at last brought the young 
prince, Siavush, for that was his name, back to his father, a 
model of wisdom and strength 97 and manly beauty. 

Kai Kaus having learned that Afrasiab was preparing to 
invade the land of Iran, sent Siavush 93 against him at the 
head of the Iranian army, accompanied by Rustam as his coun- 



26 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

selor and protector. They went by way of Zabulistan, and 
feasted in the palace of Zal, and there they received reinforce- 
ments from the tributary kings of Kabul and India. At Balkh 
they met the army of Afrasiab, under Gersivaz," his brother, 
and defeated it. 

Shortly after receiving the news of this last disaster Afrasiab 
had a dream, which was interpreted by his soothsayers to mean 
that Siavush was to bring destruction upon Turan; and to 
avert such a catastrophe he sent presents across the Oxus to 
the camp of the Iranian prince and besought peace. Siavush 
consented, by Rustam's advice, to a treaty, on condition that 
Afrasiab should restore all the lands that he had seized and 
send as hostages a hundred chosen men of his own blood. But 
when Rustam went to acquaint the Shah of Iran with the 
result, Kai Kaus was angry, and commanded that Siavush 
should put to death the Turanian hostages and carry on the 
war until the kingdom of Afrasiab had been wiped off the 
face of the earth. Rustam protested, and the Shah upbraided 
him, and said that Tus 100 should go out in- his stead as the 
guardian and champion of his son. Then Rustam, being in a 
rage, turned his back on the Shah and retired to his own 
kingdom. 

When Siavush received the Shah's message he was very 
much troubled, and after much consideration sent one of his 
counselors to return to Afrasiab the presents and hostages he 
had received from him and to inform him that the Shah had 
repudiated his treaty; and at the same time asked permission 
to pass through Turan, that he might go and hide himself away 
in some unknown land from the shame of his violated pledges. 
Then Afrasiab, by the advise of his prime minister, Piran, 101 
offered his hospitality to the Iranian prince, who, after writing 
a reproachful letter to the Shah, informing him of his resolution, 
chose out a hundred warriors of renown as a body guard, and 
went with them across the frontier into Turan. He was received 



TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF IRAN 2J 

with great honor and abode in Afrasiab's court, and after a 
few months he took to wife the daughter of Piran, and still 
later the daughter of Afrasiab himself, the princess Ferangis. 
Having received a kingdom from Afrasiab in fief, he built in it 
a great city called Gangdis, 102 and lived there happily with his 
noble and beloved spouses. For some time Afrasiab loved him 
as his own son, but Gersivaz," the king's brother, was jealous 
of the influence and power of Siavush, and at last accused 
him to Afrasiab of disloyalty and obtained permission to put him 
to death. But Ferangis bore to Siavush a son, whose name 
was Kai Khosru, and he was brought up under the care and 
protection of Piran, who repeatedly saved him from destruction 
at the hands of the suspicious and timorous monarch. 

When Rustam heard of the death of Siavush in the land of 
Turan, he strode into the presence of Kai Kaus, and upbraided 
him bitterly with the folly which had led him to alienate his 
only son. The champion then made ready a great army to 
avenge the death of Siavush, and overcame the host of Turan 
in a series of battles, which ended in the conqnest of the whole 
land. Afrasiab himself fled into the borders of China and hid 
himself from the knowledge of men, and Rustam ruled over 
Turan for several years. But the Iranian chiefs, fearing that 
Kai Kaus might be guilty of more follies in the absence of the 
hero, sent for him to come back to the court, whereupon 
Afrasiab came forth from his hiding, gathered another army, 
regained his throne and invaded Iran again. 

But the angel Serosh came in a vision to Gudarz, 103 who was 
of the race of Kava the smith, and told him that the only one 
who could save his country was the son of Siavush, who still 
abode within the Turanian borders. In obedience to the 
heavenly messenger, Gudarz sent his son Gav, 10t who, after 
seven years of search, at last succeeded in finding Kai 
Khosru, 105 in the forests of Khoten, where he had been hidden 
by Afrasiab. The . young prince proved his identity by un- 



28 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

covering his arm and showing to Gav the mark that was 
borne by all the members of the royal house after the time of 
Kai Kobad. So Kai Kaus resigned the crown to Kai Khosru, 105 
who received the adhesion of all the kings and nobles of the 
land. 

Soon the world resounded with the fame of the new Shah 
and the praises of his wisdom; and men came from all parts of 
the earth to do him homage. But his grandfather Kaus had 
made him take a solemn oath to carry on the war against 
Afrasiab, and so, after reviewing the armies of Iran and its 
feudatories, he sent them forth under the command of Tus. 

Now Tus had been instructed by the Shah not to pass 
through the land over which his half-brother Firud ruled, who 
had been born to Siavush of the daughter of Piran. But in 
order to avoid crossing the desert Tus disobeyed the imperial 
command, and a quarrel arose, which resulted in the death of 
the prince. His campaign in Turan also ended disastrously, 
and Friburz, the king's uncle, who was sent to replace him in 
command, was equally unsuccessful. 

Then Kai Khosru shut himself up in his palace in a great 
rage and refused to see any one. So the nobles besought 
Rustam's intervention, and by his persuasions another great 
army was sent against Turan, but it was defeated like the 
former ones, until Rustam listened to the Shah's entreaties 
and took the field himself as of old. 

Rustam once more overthrew Afrasiab and conquered his 
whole land, 106 and then returned into Zabulistan. But he could 
not abide in peace; for he was sent for again and again to 
defend Iran against its enemies. 

Afrasiab having regained his own once more, and renewed 
his aggressions, the Iranians sent several new armies to dis- 
possess him, and among those who fell in one of the battles 
which then took place was the noble-minded Piran Visa, whom 
they had often tried in vain to detach from the Turanian cause; 



TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF IRAN 29 

and they buried him with great honor because of his ancient 
kindness to Siavush and Kai Khosru. 

At last Afrasiab was overthrown with all his tributaries by 
the Iranians under Rustam and Tur, 107 and fled for refuge to 
the court of the king of China. The latter was compelled by 
the Iranians to send him forth out of his borders, and after 
wandering in the mountains for several years the once power- 
ful emperor of Turan was recognized one day by a hermit of the 
race of Feridun, and taken before Kai Khosru, who put him 
to death in revenge for the murder of his father Siavush. 108 

After this Kai Khosru ruled over Iran in peace for sixty 
years, and then bequeathed the imperial dignity to his distant 
kinsman L/Ohurasp, and went into the mountains to spend his 
last days in penitential retirement and meditation. 109 

lyohurasp 110 reigned over Iran in wisdom, but his son Gush- 
tasp 111 was discontented because his father would not resign to 
him the sovereignty. So he went into the land of Rum 71 to the 
city built by Selm, and did there such deeds of valor that the 
king of the country gave him his daughter to wife. 112 L,ohu- 
rasp, hearing of the prowess of his son, invited him to return 
and ascend the throne of Iran, while he himself retired to the 
temples of Balkh 34 to prepare for death. 

Gushtasp ruled worthily, and during his reign Zarathustra, 113 
the prophet of God, appeared in the land, and purified it from the 
power of the Evil One, and gave to it the L,aw. When Arjasp, 
who sat on the throne of Afrasiab, heard this, he was angry, 
and sent messages to Gushtasp bidding him to return to the 
religion of his fathers, and threatening to overthrow his king- 
dom if he refused. But Gushtasp sent forth an army into 
Turan, under the command of his son Isfertdiar, and Arjasp 
was put to flight. Then the Shah bade Isfendiar go out and 
bring all the lauds to the faith of Zarathustra. But in the 
midst of his glorious career his kinsman Gurezm 114 accused 
him of conspiring against his father, and he was put in prison. 



30 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

When Arjasp 115 heard that the hero he most feared was out 
of the way he fell upon the city of Balkh, burned Zarath- 
ustra's temple there, put to death the prophet himself and 
L,ohurasp, the ex-Shah, and took the daughters of the latter 
captive. Gushtasp came out against him with the Iranian 
army, but was defeated. 

Then, by the advice of his lords, he released Isfendiar and 
gave him the command, promising to abdicate the throne 
in his favor if he was successful. Isfendiar 116 broke the power 
of Arjasp once more, but his father postponed the fulfillment 
of his promise on one pretext after another, and finally 
demanded, as a further condition, that first the prince should 
go to Zabulistan and bind Rustam the champion, and bring 
him into his presence; because he had ceased to render him 
homage and had not come to aid him against Arjasp. Isfen- 
diar protested against doing this injury to an old man, ripe in 
wisdom, who had been the mainstay of the Iranian throne, but 
his father insisted, and so he set forth sorrowfully, with a great 
army, on the road to Seistan. As he approached he sent his 
son Bahman to Rustam, and begged him to come with him in 
peace and allow himself to be taken bound before the Shah, 
as a mere formality to satisfy the monarch's caprice. The 
Sistanese hero-king indignantly rejected the proposal, but 
invited Isfendiar to feast with him, and offered to go with him 
to the Shah, but in a manner suitable to his own rank -and 
reputation. Isfendiar refused to be Rustam's guest, but invited 
him to drink wine with him in his own tents. When, how- 
ever, he had made ready the banquet, he sent no messenger to 
Rustam, and sat down without him. 

Rustam on his coming protested indignantly against this 
lack of courtesy; whereupon Isfendiar invited him to sit at his 
left hand. Rustam then said that his place had always been 
at the right hand of the Shah, so Isfendiar commanded a throne 
to be set for him in that place of honor. But Isfendiar took 



TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF IRAN 3 1 

care to provoke him still further during the banquet, and on 
the following day they met in single combat. Now Zarathus- 
tra had charmed the bod} 7 of Isfendiar so that Rustam could 
not hurt him, and when the day's combat was over Rustam 
and his steed Rakush were bleeding with hundreds of wounds. 
The champion still refused to yield himself and told Isfendiar 
he would be ready to meet him again in the morning. He then 
swam across the stream and went before Zal and Rudaba, who 
rent the air with their cries on beholding for the first time their 
hero son so sorely wounded. 

Then Zal remembered the feather of the Simurgh, and, when 
he had placed it in the fire as she had directed, the bird of God 
came flying to his assistance. Passing her wings above the 
bodies of Rustam and Rakush they were forthwith made sound 
again. Then she bade the champion make an arrow from one 
of the branches of a certain tree, and to aim it at the eyes of 
Isfendiar, for there only could he be wounded. So on the 
morrow Rustam, after vainly trying once again to make peace 
with the prince, renewed the conflict, and gave Isfendiar a 
mortal wound with the Simurgh 's arrow. When the prince 
felt that he was dying, he told Rustam that he had come against 
him and provoked him to combat unwillingly, at Gushtasp's 
command, and he committed to him the care of his son Bah- 
man. 117 

When Gushtasp heard the news of his son's death he re- 
pented bitterly what he had done, and received with profound 
humility the reproaches of Prince Bashutan, 118 his younger 
son, for having been the sole cause of Isfendiar' s death. 

Now after this it happened that the aged Zal, who had some 
time before resigned the throne of Seistan and Zabulistan to 
his son Rustam, had another son born to him by a beautiful 
slave girl, and called his name Shagad. And when Shagad 
became a man he went to Kabul, and took to wife the daughter 
of the king of that country. The latter, when Shagad had be- 



32 SOHRAB AXD RUSTUM 

come his son-in-law, thought that he ought to be released from 
the tribute that his family had been accustomed to pay to the 
kings of Seistan; but Rustam would not consent to release him 
from this obligation. The king of Kabul, therefore, took 
counsel with his son-in-law, and the latter agreed to conspire 
with him for the destruction of his half-brother, the renowned 
champion of Iran. So by a concerted plan the king of Kabul 
called his nobles together to a feast, in course of which he re- 
proached Shagad with his mother's ignoble origin, and also 
spoke lightly of Rustam himself. Then Shagad pretended to 
be greatly offended, and came to Zabulistan and complained 
guilefully to Rustam of what the king of Kabul had said. 
Rustam was beside himself with rage and began to make ready 
an army to punish the Kabulese monarch for his insults. But 
Shagad persuaded him to take only a small band of knights 
with him, lest the king of Kabul should think that he con- 
sidered him a formidable antagonist. 

At the approach of Rustam the king of Kabul went out to 
meet him and prostrated himself in the dust at his feet, asking 
his forgiveness for the words he had spoken, as he explained, 
while his head was troubled with wine. Rustam, always as 
easily placated as he was quick to take offense, forgave him, 
and accepted his proffered hospitality. But the king of Kabul 
had by Shagad' s advice prepared a great pit, lined with sharp 
spears and skilfully hidden beneath a light covering of branches 
and earth; and while they were out hunting together pointed 
out to him the way that led directly over it. So the hero all 
unsuspecting rode forward into the trap, with Rakush his horse, 
and the spears pierced their bodies from every side and wounded 
them unto death. Rakush died at once, but Rustam, putting 
forth all his prodigious strength in one last effort, succeeded in 
raising himself out of the pit and fell down beside it in his 
death agony. But his treacherous brother, Shagad, stood by 
gloating over his destruction, and then Rustam knew that he 



TRADITIONAL HISTORY OF IRAN 33 

was his murderer, and succeeded in piercing his heart with an 
arrow before he gave up his spirit. 

One of Rustam's warriors rode with all speed to Seistan and 
told there the sad tidings; andFeramorz, 119 Rustam's son, gath- 
ered together an army without delay and destroyed the king- 
dom of Kabul, slaying the king and all his family and 
changing the whole land into a desert. And he brought back 
with great honors the bodies of Rustam and Rakush his steed. 

Zal and Rudaba mourned for their wonderful son, and built a 
stately tomb, and placed Rustam in it with his faithful Rakush 
by his side; and the whole land of Iran was filled with such 
wailing as had never before been heard upon earth. 120 



THE STORY OF SOHRAB 

AS TOLD IN THE SHAH NAMA 

One day the hero Rustam, 134 crown prince of Seistan, 135 being 
troubled in his spirit, supplied his quiver with arrows, and went 
to hunt wild asses in the plains near Turan. 7i After he be- 
came weary of the sport, he rested and ate one of the animals, 
and then lay down to sleep, leaving Rakush, his horse 189 to 
pasture by his side. Some Turanian knights passed by, and 
seeing that the horse was an unusually fine one, lassoed him 
and took him away with them. 

Rustam, on awakening, was much disturbed and grieved at 
the loss of his beloved steed, the companion of all his adven- 
tures, and set to work to find him. Following the hoof-marks 
he walked slowly towards the neighboring city of Samengan. 121 
At that time there was peace between Iran and its rival 
empire- 

As he was about to enter the gates of the city, its king, with 
his nobles, came forth to greet the world-renowned warrior, 
who had been recognized from afar. On learning of his loss, 
the king promised to have a diligent search made for the pre- 
cious animal, and begged him to accept his hospitality in the 
meantime. And while he was the guest of the king of Samen- 
gan, the princess Tahmina visited him secretly, and told him 
that she had for years drank in eagerly the tales of his won- 
derful prowess, and she confessed that her heart was torn with 
love for him, and with desire for a son who should be a hero 
like himself. If he would marry her, she would find Rakush 
for him, and place the whole land in his hands, and if he re- 
fused she would never accept any other mate. 

34 



THE STORY OF SOHRAB 35 

Rustam, seeing that she was surpassingly fair, responded to 
her love, and, according to the customs of the times, sent a 
mobed or priest to ask her hand from the king. The sovereign 
was pleased at an alliance with such a hero, and the nuptials 
were celebrated with great rejoicing. But as Samengan was 
tributary to Turan, it was decided that the marriage should be 
kept secret from the people of both the rival empires. Soon the 
king's messengers found and recovered the swift-footed 
Rakush, and Rustam made ready to return to his own country. 
But before he departed he took an onyx which he wore upon 
his arm, and which was celebrated throughout the world, and 
presented it to his wife, bidding her to keep it carefully and 
give it to their child, if Heaven should grant them one. If it 
were a daughter, the precious stone should be bound amid the 
tresses of her hair, but if a son he should fasten it upon his arm 
and wear it as his father had done. 

Time went on, and a son was born to Tahmina. He was 
such a smiling babe that they called him Sohrab, which means 
The Joyful. So rapidly did he develop towards maturity that 
when he had lived a month he appeared to be a year old, and 
when he was five years old he was skilled in arms and all the 
arts of war, and at ten he had the heart of a lion, and no one in 
the land could compete with him in games of strength. 

About this time he went proudly to his mother to ask of her 
his father's name, whereupon she told him that he was the son 
of the unequaled Rustam, who was her rightful husband, and 
that he was therefore descended from the heroic race of Zal 
and Sam. 13c After showing him one of his father's letters, she 
placed the onyx upon his arm, as Rustam had directed, and 
gave him other presents of gold and jewels, which the hero 
had sent when the child was born. But she said to him: " Be 
careful not to make these things known, for Turan groans 
under the hand of Afrasiab, 8T and he is an enemy to the glori- 
ous Rustam. If, therefore, he should learn that you were 



36 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Rustam's son, he would seek to destroy you for your father's 
sake. Moreover, O my boy! if Rustam learned that you had 
become such a mountain of valor, he would perhaps demand 
you at my hands, and the sorrow of parting from you would 
break my heart." 

As soon as he had thus learned his true origin he conceived 
the ambitious design of leading an army into Iran, to overthrow 
the Shah Kai Kaus, 90 place Rustam on the throne in his stead, 
and then, with his assistance, conquer Afrasiab and unite his 
kingdom to the Iranian empire. 

When he announced his intention of making an expedition 
against Iran the nobles and warriors crowded around him with 
enthusiasm and the king opened his treasures to the boy and 
granted to him royal honors. When the guardian of the court 
stables led the king's horses before the young prince for him 
to select a war horse for himself he tested them first by pressing 
their backs with his hand and found none of them strong 
enough for his use. But after many days of search he learned 
of a foal sired by Rakush, and found him all that he desired. 

When Afrasiab learned that Sohrab was showing the disposi- 
tion of a hero, and was setting on foot an army for the de- 
thronement of Kai Kaus, he was greatly pleased, and com- 
manded Human and Barman, two of his most trusted lords, to 
gather an army and offer their assistance to Sohrab. At the 
same time he gave them a secret commission. 

" I know," he said, "that Sohrab is the son of Rustam the 
Paladin, but Rustam must not learn who it is that is going 
against him. Then perhaps he will perish by the hands of 
this young lion, and then Iran, Rustam being gone, will be an 
easy prey. Afterwards he will subdue Sohrab also, and all 
the world will be ours. But if Sohrab should fall at the hands 
of Rustam, then the grief that Rustam will experience when 
he shall learn that he has slain so noble a son will bring him 
down with sorrow to the grave. ' ' 



THE STORY OF SOHRAB 2)7 

So they came to Sohrab, bringing letters and gifts from king 
Afrasiab, and the young prince was greatly rejoiced, and set 
forth at once with the united hosts into the land of Iran, deal- 
ing destruction as they went. 

Soon they came to the White Castle, the most powerful 
fortress in that part of Iran; and when its guardian, Hujir, 
came out to meet the invaders and engaged their chief in single 
combat, Sohrab overcame him and made him a prisoner. The 
hero Gustahem also abode in the castle, but he was grown 
too old to fight. His warlike daughter, Gurdafrid, however, 
rode forth to meet the young champion, and proved a formidable 
antagonist. But Sohrab at last overpowered her, and when, on 
tearing off her helmet, he discovered that his antagonist was a 
woman, he immediately became violently enamored of her. He 
bound her with his lasso, intending to make her a prisoner, but 
she escaped him by a ruse and reached the castle in safety. 

Her father called before him a scribe, and sent a letter to 
Kai Kaus, warning him of the invasion, and then fled with his 
daughter and their retainers by means of an underground 
passage-way, so that when Sohrab' s army scaled the walls of 
the castle on the following day they found it empty. 

When Kai Kaus and his nobles received the writing from 
Gustahem, and read the description of the chief — a child in 
years, but a lion in strength and stature — who, with a great 
host, was laying waste his territories, they were much troubled, 
and agreed, as with one voice, that Rustam alone could save the 
nation in this hour of peril. The Shah at once wrote to the 
champion, telling him of the new catastrophe that threatened 
Iran, and bidding him hasten with all speed to his assistance. 
The brave warrior Gav was chosen to carry the message to 
Seistan, and the Shah instructed him not to rest until he had 
placed it in Rustam 's hands, and to return without a moment's 
delay when he had fulfilled the commission. 



38 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Rustam was much surprised at hearing that such a warrior 
had arisen among the Turks. After conversing with Gav 
regarding the new champion, he said: " I have myself a son in 
Samengan, but he is yet an infant, and his mother writes tome 
that he is fond of the sports of his age. Though he is likely 
to become some day a hero among men, his time has not come 
to lead forth an army. And that which you say has been done 
is very far from being the work of a child." 

In spite of the urgency of the king's message, Rustam spoke 
lightly of the danger, and persuaded Gav to remain and feast 
with him before setting out on the campaign. 

For three days they banqueted and made merry, and when 
with their army they at last appeared before the Shah he was 
furious with rage against Rustam, and commanded him to be 
hanged to the nearest gallows for disobeying his commands. 
Gav protested, and the Shah ordered that he should be hung 
also. But Rustam broke loose from the grasp of those who 
made a pretense of obeying the Shah's hasty order, and heaped 
reproaches upon the angry monarch. Then he strode out of 
the presence-chamber and sprang upon Rakush, and was soon 
out of sight. 

But the nobles took counsel together and represented to the 
Shah how foolish his conduct had been, and urged him to re- 
consider his decision and endeavor to conciliate the champion 
who was the mainstay of his throne. So, by the Shah's per- 
mission, all the chiefs of Iran, headed by the venerable 
Gudarz, went forth in quest of Rustam, and, when they found 
him, prostrated themselves before him and begged him not to 
let the land perish because of the folly of its emperor. 

After much reasoning they persuaded him to ignore the 
insult that had been offered him and come to the Shah's assist- 
ance. 

When Kai Kaussawhim approaching he stepped down from his 
throne and came before the champion and besought his pardon. 



THE STORY OF SOHRAB 39 

The next morning the Persian legions set forth to meet the 
invaders. When they reached the plains where the fortress of 
Hujir stood they pitched their tents before it, for it was still 
occupied by the army of Sohrab. 

When Sohrab learned that the enemy were come, he rejoiced, 
and drank a cup of wine to their destruction. 

Then he called forth Human and showed him the army, and 
bade him be of good cheer, for he saw within its ranks no one 
who could stand against himself. 

After nightfall Rustam begged leave of the Shah to go out- 
side the lines and try to see what kind of a man this redoubt- 
able stripling was who led the invading army. Disguising 
himself as a Turanian he entered the castle in secret and found 
his way to the apartment where Sohrab was feasting with his 
warriors. 

Among the latter was Zinda, the brother of Tahmina, 
who, as there was no one else in the army of Samengan who 
knew Rustam, had sent him for the express purpose of point- 
ing out her hero-husband to Sohrab their son, so that no harm 
might befall if they should chance to be opposed to each other 
in battle. 

Now it happened that Zinda, having changed his seat, saw 
the dark figure half hidden in the shadows outside the door, 
and went towards him, asking him who he was, and bidding 
him come into the light that he might see his face. But before 
he could speak further Rustam struck him to the ground and 
then went back to his own camp, and a little while afterwards 
Sohrab' s slaves found their master's uncle lying dead, bathed 
in his own blood. 

The next morning Sohrab put on his armor and, taking with 
him the captive Hujir, went to the parapet of the castle, from 
which they could look down over the camp of the Iranians. 



40 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Pointing out one after another of the tents of the opposing 
chiefs Sohrab demanded of his prisoner whose they were. 
Huj ir answered him that the pavilion in the center made of 
gold brocade adorned with leopard's skins with a hundred war 
elephants before it and a throne of turquoise within, and above 
all a violet standard emblazoned with the son and moon, was 
that of the Shah of Iran; the tent on its right hand, with an 
elephant on its flag, was that of Tus 100 the Naotaride; that in 
which many warriors in rich armor were standing, and above 
which was a golden flag emblazoned with a lion, was that of 
Gudarz, the father of eighty warlike sons; that which bore a 
wolf's head on its standard belonged to Gav 10i the son of Gud- 
arz; that with raised awnings of Syrian brocades belonged to 
the Shah's son Fraburz; 123 and that with yellow trappings be- 
longed to Guraz 103 the lion-hearted, and so on. But there was 
a tent draped with green, and with a lion and a dragon on its 
standard, that Hujir did not name; the flag of Kava 69 stood 
at its entrance and before it stood a champion of extraordinary 
height and of nobler appearance than any of the rest, and his 
war-horse near him seemed as mighty as he. It was the tent 
of the prince of Seistan, and the man and steed were Rustam 
and Rakush; but Hujir feared to tell the young hero the signs 
whereby he might know the champion of Iran, lest he might 
fall upon him suddenly and destroy the mainstay of the land. 
Sohrab questioned him with eagerness again and again regard- 
ing this tent and its formidable owner, but Hujir evaded his 
inquiries and when closely pressed professed himself ignorant 
as to who it might be. He suggested that it was probably a 
new ally from some distant, land. Again and again Sohrab 
asked him where Rustam was and he always returned the same 
answer — that he was not in the camp; but Sohrab could not 
believe that Kai Kaus would go forth to battle without the aid 
of Rustam. Finally he threatened to strike off Hujir's head 
unless he showed him the tents of Rustam. But the Iranian 



THE STORY OF SOHRAB 41 

preferred to lose his own life rather than to be the means of 
the destruction of his beloved land. So he gave a defiant 
answer and the prince killed him with a blow of his sword. 

Sohrab made himself ready for the fight and mounting his 
war horse rode out to the camp of the Iranians, broke down the 
barriers with his spear, and summoned the Shah to do battle 
with him, that the blood of Zinda might be avenged. 

The Iranians trembled when they heard his voice of thunder, 
and saw his stalwart form, and the majesty of his mien, and 
none of the warriors around the Shah would accept his chal- 
lenge in their lord's behalf. They cried with one accord that 
Rustam alone could compete with such an adversary, and Tus 
hastened to Rustam 's pavilion. The hero began to demur 
against such haste, complaining that he was always called on 
for the hardest tasks; but the nobles would not let him waste 
his time in words, and buckled on his armor, threw his leopard 
skin about him, and saddled Rakush. When he was mounted 
they pushed him forth, and called after him: " Make haste, for 
no common combat awaits you; for it is certainly the evil one 
himself who is standing before our camp." 

When Rustam came out to Sohrab and saw the youth, so 
strong and brave, and with a chest mighty as that of Sam, he 
invited him to step out into the belt of ground that separated 
the two camps. Having pity on the noble young man, he 
sought to dissuade him from the fight, and Sohrab, on his side, 
thought that he saw in his opponent the signs by which Tah- 
mina had told him he might recognize his father. But Rus- 
tam denied his name, and asserted that he was not a member of 
any royal house; for he wished to put fear in his opponent's 
heart by making him think that the Iranian army had cham- 
pions of still greater might than even his own. 

So they fought until their spears were shivered, their swords 
hacked like saws and their clubs broken, and then wrestled and 



42 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

fought with their fists until their mail was torn, their horses 
utterly exhausted, and their bodies covered with sweat and 
blood. Finally they stopped to rest, and thus far neither of 
them had the advantage. Rustam reflected that never in his 
life had he encountered such a hero, and said to himself that' 
even the combat with the White Div had been nothing to this. 

Then they fought with arrows, and then wrestled again, but 
with the same result. Finally they returned to their clubs once 
more, and Sohrab struck Rustam such a blow that the cham- 
pion reeled beneath the stroke, and bit his lips in agony. At 
this Sohrab boasted of his advantage, and bade Rustam go 
and measure himself with his equals, for, though his strength 
was great, he could not stand against a youth. 

So they separated, and Rustam dealt havoc among the men 
of Turan, while Sohrab did the same among the Iranians. 
Rustam was sad at the lack of his usual success in the morn- 
ing's combat, and when he saw how many noble warriors had 
fallen by Sohrab's hand, he was roused to fury, and challenged 
the youth to come forth again on the morrow to single combat. 

After the battle was over for the day Sohrab, among his 
chiefs in the White Castle, praised the might of the champion 
with whom he had been matched; and he confessed in confi- 
dence to Human that he was filled with misgivings regarding 
that aged warrior. "It seems to me," he said, "that his 
stature is like mine, and that I see in him the tokens that my 
mother described to me. My heart goes out towards him, and 
I wonder if it be not my father Rustam ; for I ought not to 
fight with him." 

But Human, in obedience to Afrasiab's instructions, endeav- 
ored to dissuade him from this thought, and assured him that 
he had often seen Rustam, and that this man had no re- 
semblance to him and wielded his club in an entirely different 
way. 



THE STORY OF SOHRAB 43 

When day dawned Rustani and Sohrab came forward into 
the neutral ground prepared for the fight. Sohrab smilingly 
sought a friendly reconciliation, and once again asked his oppo- 
nent if he were not Rustam. 

But Rustam refused to parley, and they fought the whole 
day, until, just at sunset, Sohrab seized Rustam by the girdle, 
threw him to the ground, and, kneeling upon him, drew forth 
his sword to strike off his head. Then Rustam resorted to a 
ruse, and told the young man that the laws of honor required 
that when one brave man had overthrown another for the first 
time he should not destroy him, but should reserve him for a 
second fight, and then only might he put him to death. So 
Sohrab let him go, and spent the night in deer hunting. The 
next morning Human asked him about the adventure of the 
day, and Sohrab told him how he had granted the tall man his 
life and freedom after having thrown him to earth. Human 
reproached him for having allowed himself to be deceived, but 
Sohrab told him that they were to meet for a third encounter 
within an hour, and that this time he should not escape him. 

Meanwhile Rustam, after bathing his limbs in a running 
brook, besought Heaven for such an increase of strength as to 
enable him to obtain the victory. And while he prayed his 
strength became such that the rock on which he was standing 
gave way beneath his feet. And he saw that it was too much, 
and prayed that it might be diminished a little, and once more 
the All-knowing Lord granted his petition. 

And when the hour for the combat was come, Rustam went 
to the meeting place; but when he saw Sohrab coming forth 
like a mad elephant and defying him with a voice like thunder, 
he for the first time in his life had the sensation of fear, and 
prayed that God might restore to him the surplus of power that 
he had before begged him to take away. Then he closed with 
Sohrab, and shook him terribly, with all his new found might, 



44 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

and at last seized him by the girdle and hurled him to the 
ground so violently that his back was broken like a reed. But 
as he drew forth his sword to give him the death stroke, the 
young warrior, writhing in his agony, threatened his slayer 
with the vengeance of his father Rustam. When Rustam heard 
his words his sword fell from his grasp, and with a groan sank 
down in a swoon beside his mortally wounded son. When he 
returned to himself Sohrab was still alive, and confirmed his 
former words by showing the onyx that he wore beneath his 
armor. When Rustam saw it he tore his clothes in his distress, 
threw dust on his head and refused to be comforted. 

Meanwhile, the sun having set, and Rustam not having re- 
turned to the camp, the nobles of Iran were afraid and went 
forth to seek him. When they found Rakush standing alone 
they raised a wailing and returned and told Kai Kaus that the 
champion of Iran must have perished. So the Shah sent Tus 
to find out whether Rustam had really fallen, and commanded 
that if it were indeed so the drums should call to battle that 
they might avenge his death. 

When Tus and the nobles with him saw Rustam alive they 
broke forth in a great shout of joy, but when he told them of 
his terrible misfortune they were grieved for him, and joined 
him in wailing for his son. Rustam was so beside himself with 
grief at witnessing the pain of his dying son that he would 
have taken his own life, had not the nobles interfered to pre- 
vent the rash deed. 

Then Rustam remembered that Kai Kaus had a balm that 
was very potent for healing and begged Gudarz to go and en- 
treat the Shah to send it to him. But Kai Kaus refused to 
grant the petition, remembering Rustam 's proud words, and 
fearing to have two such powerful and united vassals as Rus- 
tam and his son would be if both should live. When Gudarz 
returned from his fruitless embassy Rustam himself went to 



THE STORY OF SOHRAB 45 

implore the Shah to grant him the favor he desired, but before 
he reached the royal pavilion a messenger overtook him with 
the news that Sohrab was already dead. 

Then Rustam set up such a cry as had never before been 
heard on earth and heaped reproaches upon himself without 
end for his awful mistake. 

And then he made a great fire and threw into it his armor 
and his leopard skin and his saddle, his many-colored tent, and 
his Syrian trappings and all the appurtenances of his throne. 
He watched them burn into cinders, and tore his flesh, crying, 
' ' My heart is sick unto death. ' ' 

The army of Turan went back over the borders in peace, as 
Sohrab had requested that they be allowed to do, and the body 
of the young prince, wrapped in precious brocades, was carried 
to Seistan. Rustam and his nobles marched before the bier, 
with their garments rent, and with their heads bared and 
covered with ashes. The drums of the war-elephants and the 
cymbals of battle were broken, and the tails of the horses 
shorn to the root, and thus, with all the emblems of extremest 
mourning, the sad cavalcade came to Rustam 's home, where 
Zal and Rudaba, Rustam' s parents, heard the true story from 
the lips of Rustam their son. Rustam built a tomb in the 
shape of a horse-shoe for Sohrab, and the body of the young 
hero in all its costly wrappings was laid within it in a chamber 
lined with gold and perfumed with ambergris. 

For a long time thereafter the house of Rustam had the still- 
ness of the grave, and in distant Samengan the king rent his 
robes and Tahmina threw earth upon her head and tore her 
hair and wrung her hands and rolled on the ground in her 
agony. And she caused all the garments of Sohrab to be 
brought unto her, and his throne, and his steed, that she might 
look upon them once more. She stroked the horse, pressed 
his head against her breast, and wet his very hoofs with her 



46 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

tears. She cherished the robes as if they still contained her 
darling boy, and she kissed the helmet he had worn. Then, 
according to the custom of the land, she cut off the tail of his 
steed in sign of mourning, and set his house on fire, and gave 
his gold and jewels to the poor; and within less than twelve 
months her spirit went forth to join that of Sohrab her son. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

AN EPISODE 

BY 

MATTHEW ARNOLD 

And the first grey of morning fill'd the east, 
And the fog rose out of the Oxus 123 stream. 
But all the Tartar 124 camp along the stream 
Was hush'd, and still the men were plunged in sleep; 
Sohrab alone, he slept not; all night long 
He had lain wakeful, tossing on his bed; 
But when the grey dawn stole into his tent, 
He rose, and clad himself, and girt his sword, 
And took his horseman's cloak, and left his tent, 
And went abroad into the cold wet fog, 
Through the dim camp to Peran-Wisa's 125 tent. 

Through the black Tartar tents he pass'd, 
which stood 
Clustering like bee-hives on the low, flat strand 
Of Oxus, 126 where the summer-floods o'erflow 
When the sun melts the snows in high Pamere; 127 
Through the black tents he pass'd, o'er that low strand, 
And to a hillock came, a little back 
From the stream's brink — the spot where first a boat, 
Crossing the stream in summer, scrapes the land. 
The men of former times had crown'd the top 
With a clay fort: but that was fall'n, and now 

47 



48 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

The Tartars built there Peran-Wisa's tent, 
A dome of laths, 128 and o'er it felts were spread. 
And Sohrab came there, and went in, and stood 
Upon the thick-piled 129 carpets in the tent, 
And found the old man sleeping on his bed 
Of rugs and felts, and near him lay his arms. 
And Peran-Wisa 125 heard him, though the step 
Was dull'd; for he slept light, an old man's sleep; 
And he rose quickly on one arm, and said: 

" Who art thou? for it is not yet clear dawn. 
Speak! Is there any news, or any night alarm?" 
But Sohrab came to the bedside, and said: — 
"Thou know'st me, Peran-Wisa! it is I. 
The sun is not yet risen, and the foe 
Sleep; but I sleep not; all night long I lie 
Tossing and wakeful, and I come to thee. 
For so did King Afrasiab" bid me seek 
Thy counsel, and to heed thee as thy son, 
In Samarcand, 131 before the army march'd; 
And I will tell thee what my heart desires. 
Thou know'st if, since from Ader-baijan 132 first 
I came among the Tartars, and bore arms, 
I have still served Afrasiab well, and shown, 
At my boy's years, 133 the courage of a man. 
This, too, thou know'st, that while I still bear on 
The conquering Tartar ensigns through the world, 
And beat the Persians back on every field, 
I seek one man, one man, and one alone — 
Rustum, 134 my father; who I hoped should greet, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 49 

Should one day greet, upon some well-fought field, 

His not unworthy, not inglorious son. 

So I long hoped, but him I never find. 

Come then, hear now, and grant me what I ask. 

Let the two armies rest to-day; but I 

Will challenge forth the bravest Persian lords 

To meet me, man to man: if I prevail, 

Rustum will surely hear it; if I fall — 

Old man, the dead need no one, claim no kin. 

Dim is the rumour of a common fight, 

Where host meets host, and many names are sunk; 

But of a single combat fame speaks clear." 

He spoke; and Peran-Wisa took the hand 
Of the young man in his, and sigh'd, and said: — 

"O Sohrab, an unquiet heart is thine! 
Canst thou not rest among the Tartar chiefs, 
And share the battle's common chance with us 
Who love thee, but must press forever first, 
In single fight incurring single risk, 
To find a father thou has never seen? 
That were far best, my son, to stay with us 
Unmurmuring; in our tents, while it is war, 
And when 't is truce, then in Afrasiab's towns. 
But, if this one desire indeed rules all, 
To seek out Rustum — seek him not through fight! 
Seek him in peace, and carry to his arms, 
O Sohrab, carry an unwounded son! 
But far hence seek him, for he is not here. 
For now it is not as when I was young, 



5<D SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

When Rustum was in front of every fray; 

But now he keeps apart, and sits at home, 

In Seistan, 135 with Zal, 136 his father old. 

Whether that his own mighty strength at last 

Feels the abhorr'd approaches of old age, 

Or in some quarrel with the Persian King. 

There go! — Thou wilt not? Yet my heart forebodes 

Danger or death awaits thee on this field. 

Fain would I know thee safe and well, though lost 

To us; fain therefore send thee hence, in peace 

To seek thy father, not seek single fights 

In vain; — but who can keep the lion's cub 

From ravening, and who govern Rustum's son? 

Go, I will grant thee what thy heart desires." 

So said he, and dropp'd Sohrab's hand, and left 
His bed, and the warm rugs whereon he lay; 
And o'er his chilly limbs his woollen coat 137 
He pass'd, and tied his sandals on his feet, 
And threw a white cloak 138 round him, and he took 
In his right hand a ruler's staff, no sword; 
And on his head he placed his sheep-skin cap, 
Black, glossy, curl'd, the fleece of Kara-Kul; 139 
And raised the curtain of his tent, and call'd 
His herald to his side, and went abroad. 

The sun by this had risen, and cleared the fog 
From the broad Oxus 126 and the glittering sands. 
And from their tents the Tartar horsemen filed 
Into the open plain; so Haman 110 bade; — 
Haman, who next to Peran-Wisa ruled 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 51 

The host, and still was in his lusty prime. 
From their black tents, long files of horse, they 

stream'd ; 
As when some grey November morn the files, 
In marching order spread, of long-neck'd cranes 
Stream over Casbin 141 and the southern slopes 
Of Elburz, 112 from the Aralian estuaries," 3 
Or some frore 111 Caspian reed-bed, 115 southward bound 
For the warm Persian sea-board — so they stream'd. 
The Tartars 116 of the Oxus, 117 the King's guard, 
First, with black sheep-skin caps and with long 

spears; 
Large men, large steeds; 118 who from Bokhara 119 come 
And Khiva, 150 and ferment the milk of mares. 151 
Next the more temperate Toorkmuns 152 of the south, 
The Tukas, 153 and the lances of Salore, 151 
And those from Attruck 155 and the Caspian sands; 115 
Light men and on light steeds, 156 who only drink 
The acrid milk of camels, 151 and their wells. 
And then a swarm of wandering horse, 157 who came 
From far, and a more doubtful service own'd; 
The Tartars of Ferghana, 158 from the banks 
Of the Jaxartes, 159 men with scanty beards 
And close-set skull-caps; 160 and those wilder hordes 
Who roam o'er Kipchak 161 and the northern waste, 
Kalmucks 162 and unkempt Kuzzaks, 163 tribes who stray 
Nearest the Pole, 161 and wandering Kirghizzes, 165 
Who come on shaggy ponies 166 from Pamere. 167 
These all filed out from camp into the plain. 



52 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

And on the other side the Persians form'd; — 
First a light cloud of horse, Tartars they seem'd, 
The Ilyats 168 of Khorassan; 16 and behind, 
The royal troops of Persia, horse and foot, 
Marshall'd battalions bright in burnish'd steel. 109 
But Peran-Wisa with his herald came, 
Threading the Tartar squadrons to the front, 
And with his staff kept back the foremost ranks. 
And when Ferood, 170 who led the Persians, saw 
That Peran-Wisa kept the Tartars back, 
He took his spear, and to the front he came, 
And check'd his ranks, and fix'd them where they 

stood. 
And the old Tartar came upon the sand 
Betwixt the silent hosts, and spake, and said: — 

11 Ferood, and ye, Persians and Tartars, hear! 
Let there be truce between the hosts to-day. 
But choose a champion from the Perisian lords 
To fight our champion Sohrab, man to man. " 

As, in the country, on a morn in June, 
When the dew glistens on the pearled ears, 
A shiver runs through the deep corn for joy — 
So, when they heard what Peran-Wisa said, 
A thrill through all the Tartar squadrons ran 
Of pride and hope for Sohrab, whom they loved. 

But as a troop of pedlars, from Cabool, 171 
Cross underneath the Indian Caucasus, 172 
That vast sky-neighboring mountain of milk snow; 
Crossing so high, that, as they mount, they pass 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 53 

Long flocks of travelling birds dead on the snow, 
Choked by the air, 173 and scarce can they themselves 
Slake their parch'd throats with sugar'd mulber- 
ries — •"* 
In single file they move, and stop their breath, 
For fear they should dislodge the o'erhanging 

snows — 175 
So the pale Persians held their breath with fear. 

And to Ferood his brother chiefs came up 
To counsel; Gudurz 170 and Zoarrah 177 came, 
And Feraburz, i;s who ruled the Persian host 
Second, and was the uncle of the King; 
These came and counsell'd, and then Gudurz said: 

" Ferood, shame bids us take their challenge up, 
Yet champion have we none to match this youth. 
He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart. 
But Rustum came last night; aloof he sits, 
And sullen, and has pitch'd his tents apart: 
Him will I seek, and carry to his ear 
The Tartar challenge, and this young man's name. 
Haply he will forget his wrath, and fight. 
Stand forth the while, and take their challenge up." 

So spake he; and Ferood stood forth and cried: — 
" Old man, be it agreed as thou hast said! 
Let Sohrab arm, and we will find a man." 

He spoke; and Peran-Wisa turn'd, and strode 
Back through the opening squadrons to his tent. 
But through the anxious Persians Gudurz ran, 
And cross'd the camp which lay behind, and reach'd, 



54 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Out on the sands beyond it, Rustum's tents. 
Of scarlet cloth 179 they were, and glittering gay, 
Just pitch'd; the high pavilion in the midst 
Was Rustum's, and his men lay camp'd around. 
And Gudurz enter'd Rustum's tent, and found 
Rustum; his morning meal was done, but still 
The table stood before him, charged with food — 
A side of roasted sheep, 180 and cakes of bread, 
And dark green melons; and there Rustum sate 
Listless, and held a falcon on his wrist, 181 
And play'd with it; but Gudurz came and stood 
Before him; and he look'd, and saw him stand, 
And with a cry sprang up and dropp'd the bird, 
And greeted Gudurz with both hands, and said: — 
"Welcome! These eyes could see no better sight. 
What news? but sit down first, and eat and drink." 
But Gudurz stood in the tent door, and said: — 
11 Not now! a time will come to eat and drink, 
But not to-day; to-day has other needs. 
The armies are drawn out, and stand at gaze; 
For from the Tartars is a challenge brought 
To pick a champion from the Persian lords 
To fight their champion — and thou know'st his 

name — 
Sohrab men call him, but his birth is hid. 
O Rustum, like thy might is this young man's! 
He has the wild stag's foot, the lion's heart; 
And he is young, and Iran's chiefs are old, 
Or else too weak; and all eyes turn to thee. 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 



55 



" Come down and help us, Rustum, or we lose!" 
He spoke; but Rustum answer'd with a smile: — 

" Go to! if Iran's chiefs are old, then I 
Am older; 182 if the young are weak, the King 
Errs strangely; for the King, for Kai Khosroo, 
Himself is young, and honors younger men, 
And lets the aged moulder to their graves. 
Rustum he loves no more, 183 but loves the young — 
The young may rise at Sohrab's vaunts, not I. 
For what care I, though all speak Sohrab's fame? 
For would that I myself had such a son, 
And not that one slight helpless girl I have — 
A son so famed, so brave, to send to war, 
And I to tarry with the snow-hair'd Zal, 
My father, whom the robber Afghans 184 vex, 
And clip his borders short, and drive his herds, 
And he has none to guard his weak old age. 
There would I go, and hang my armour up, 
And with my great name fence that weak old man, 
And spend the goodly treasure I have got, 
And rest my age, and hear of Sohrab's fame, 
And leave to death the hosts of thankless kings, 
And with these slaughterous hands draw sword no 
more." 
He spoke, and smiled ; and Gudurz made re- 
ply:- 
"What then, O Rustum, will men say to thee this, 
When Sohrab dares our bravest forth, and seeks 
Thee most of all, and thou, whom most he seeks, 



56 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Hidest thy face? Take heed, lest men should say: 
Like some old miser, Rttstum hoards his fame 
And shuns to peril it with younger men. " 

And, greatly moved, then Rustum made reply : 
"O Gudurz, wherefore dost thou say such words? 
Thou knowest better words than this to say. 
What is one more, one less, obscure or famed, 
Valiant or craven, young or old, to me ? 
Are not they mortal, am not I myself? 
But who for men of naught would do great deeds? 
Come, thou shalt see how Rustum hoards his fame ! 
But I will fight unknown, and in plain arms ; 
Let not men say of Rustum, he was match'd 
In single fight with any mortal man." 

He spoke, and frown'd ; and Gudurz turn'd, and 
ran 
Back quickly through the camp in fear and joy — ■ 
Fear at his wrath, but joy that Rustum came. 
But Rustum strode to his tent-door, and call'd 
His followers in, and bade them bring his arms, 
And clad himself in steel; 185 the arms he chose 
Were plain, 186 and on his shield was no device, 
Only his helm was rich, inlaid with gold, 187 
And, from the fluted spine atop, 188 a plume 
Of horsehair waved, a scarlet horsehair plume. 
So arm'd he issued forth ; and Ruksh, his horse, 189 
Follow'd him like a faithful hound at heel — 
Ruksh, whose renown was noised through all the 
earth, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 57 

The horse, whom Rustum on a foray once 
Did in Bokhara by the river find 
A colt beneath its dam, and drove him home, 
And rear'd him ; a bright bay, with lofty crest, 
Dight 190 with a saddle-bow of broider'd green 
Crusted with gold, and on the ground were work'd 
All beasts of chase, all beasts that hunters know. 
So follow'd, Rustum left his tents, and cross'd 
The camp, and to the Persian host appear'd; 
And all the Persians knew him, and with shouts 
Hail'd; but the Tartars knew not who he was. 
And dear as the wet diver to the eyes 
Of his pale wife who waits and weeps on shore, 
By sandy Bahrein, 191 in the Persian Gulf, 
Plunging all day in the blue waves, at night, 
Having made up his tale of precious pearls, 
Rejoins her in their hut upon the sands — 
So dear to the pale Persians Rustum came. 

And Rustum to the Persian front advanced, 
And Sohrab arm'd in Haman's tent and came. 
And as afield the reapers cut a swath 
Down through the middle of a rich man's corn, 192 
And on each side are squares of standing corn, 
And in the midst a stubble, short and bare — 
So on each side were squares of men, with spears 
Bristling, and in the midst, the open sand. 
And Rustum came upon the sand, and cast 
His eyes toward the Tartar tents, and saw 
Sohrab come forth, and eyed him as he came. 



58 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 



As some rich woman, on a winter's morn, 
Eyes through her silken curtains the poor drudge 1 " 3 
Who with numb, blacken'd fingers makes her fire — 
At cock-crow, on a star-lit winter's morn, 
When the frost flowers the whiten'd window-panes — 
And wonders how she lives, and what the thoughts 
Of that poor drudge may be; so Rustum eyed 
The unknown adventurous Youth, who from afar 
Came seeking Rustum, and defying forth 
All the most valiant chiefs; long he perused 
His spirited air, and wonder'd who he was. 
For very young he seem'd, tenderly rear'd; 
Like some young cypress, tall, and dark, and straight, 
Which in a queen's secluded garden throws 
Its slight dark shadow on the moon-lit turf, 
By midnight, to a bubbling fountain's sound — 
So slender 194 Sohrab seem'd, so softly rear'd. 
And a deep pity enter'd Rustum's soul 
As he beheld him coming; and he stood, 
And beckon'd to him with his hand, and said: — 

"O thou young man, the air of Heaven is soft, 
And warm, and pleasant; but the grave is cold ! 
Heaven's air is better than the cold dead grave. 
Behold me ! I am vast, and clad in iron, 
And tried; and I have stood on many a field 
Of blood, and I have fought with many a foe — 
Never was that field lost, or that foe saved. 
O Sohrab, wherefore wilt thou rush on death? 
Be govern'd ! quit the Tartar host, and come 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 59 

To Iran, and be as my son to me, 
And fight beneath my banner till I die! 
There are no youths in Iran brave as thou. " 

So he spake, mildly; Sohrab heard his voice, 
The mighty voice of Rustum; and he saw 
His giant figure planted on the sand, 
Sole, like some single tower, which a chief 
Hath builded on the waste 195 in former years 
Against the robbers, and he saw that head, 
Streaked with its first grey hairs ; — hope fill'd his soul, 
And he ran forward and embraced his knees, 
And clasp'd his hand within his own, and said: — 

"Oh, by thy father's head ! by thine own soul ! 
Art thou not Rustum? Speak ! art thou not he?" 

But Rustum eyed askance the kneeling youth, 
And turn'd away, and spoke to his own soul: — 

"Ah me, I muse what this young fox may mean! 
False, wily, boastful, are these Tartar boys, 
For if I now confess this thing he asks, 
And hide it not, but say: Rustum is here! 
He will not yield indeed, nor quit our foes, 
But he will find some pretext not to fight, 
And praise my fame, and proffer courteous gifts, 
A belt or sword perhaps, and go his way. 
And on a feast-tide, in Afrasiab's hall, 
In Samarcand, he will arise and cry: 

'I challenged once, when the two armies camp'd 
Beside the Oxus, all the Persian lords 
To cope with me in single fight; but they 



60 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Shrank, only Rustum dared; then he and I 
Changed gifts, and went on equal terms away.' 
So will he speak, perhaps, while men applaud, 
Then were the chiefs of Iran sham'd through me." 
And then he turn'd, and sternly spake aloud: — 
"Rise ! wherefore dost thou vainly question thus 
Of Rustum? I am here, whom thou hast call'd 
By challenge forth; make good thy vaunts, or yield ! 
Is it with Rustum only thou wouldst fight? 
Rash boy, men look on Rustum's face and flee ! 
For well I know, that did great Rustum stand 
Before thy face this day, and were reveal'd, 
There would be then no talk of fighting more. 
But being what I am, I tell thee this — 
Do thou record it in thy inmost soul: 
Either thou shalt renounce thy vaunt and yield, 
Or else thy bones shall strew this sand, till winds 
Bleach them, or Oxus with his summer-floods, 108 
Oxus in summer wash them all away, " 

He spoke; and Sohrab answer'd, on his feet: — 
"Art thou so fierce? Thou will not fright me so! 
I am no girl, to be made pale by words. 
Yet this thou hast said well, did Rustum stand 
Here on this field, there were no fighting then. 
But Rustum is far hence, and we stand here. 
Begin ! thou art more vast, more dread than I, 
And thou art proved, I know, and I am young — 
But yet success sways with the breath of Heaven, 
And though thou thinkest that thou knowest sure 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 6l 

Thy victory, yet thou canst not surely know. 
For we are all, like swimmers in the sea, 
Pois'd on the top of a huge wave of fate, 
Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall. 
And whether it will heave us up to land, 
Or whether it will roll us out to sea, 
Back out to sea, to the deep waves of death, 
We know not, and no search will make us know; 
Only the event will teach us in its hour." 

He spoke; and Rustum answer'd not, but hurl'd 
His spear 197 ; down from his shoulder, down it came, 
As on some partridge in the corn a hawk, 
That long has tower'd in the airy clouds, 
Drops like a plummet; Sohrab saw it come, 
And sprang aside, quick as a flash; the spear 
Hiss'd, and went quivering down into the sand, 
Which it sent flying wide; — then Sohrab threw 
In turn, and full struck Rustum's shield; 198 sharp rang 
The iron plates, rang sharp, but turn'd the spear. 
And Rustum seized his club, which none but he 
Could wield; an unlopp'd trunk it was, and huge, 
Still rough — like those which men in treeless plains 
To build them boats fish from the flooded rivers, 
Hyphasis or Hydaspes, 199 when, high up 
By their dark springs, the wind in winter-time 
Has made in Himalayan 200 forests wrack, 201 
And strewn the channels with torn boughs — so huge 
The club which Rustum lifted now, and struck 
One stroke; but again Sohrab sprang aside, 




62 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Lithe as the glancing snake, and the club came 
Thundering to earth, and leapt from Rustum's hand. 
And Rustum follow'd his own blow, and fell 
To his knees, and with his fingers clutch'd the sand; 
And now might Sohrab have unsheathed his sword, 
And pierced the mighty Rustum while he lay- 
Dizzy, and on his knees, and choked with sand; 
But he look'd on, and smiled, nor bared his sword, 
But courteously drew back, and spoke, and said: — 
"Thou strik'st too hard! that club of thine will 
float 
Upon the summer-floods, and not my bones. 
But rise, and be not wroth! not wroth am I; 
No, when I see thee, wrath forsakes my soul. 
Thou say'st, thou art not Rustum; be it so! 
Who art thou, then, that canst so touch my soul ? 
Boy as I am, I have seen battles too — 
Have waded foremost in their bloody waves, 
And heard their hollow roar of dying men; 
But never was my heart thus touch'd before. 
Are they from Heaven, these softenings of the heart? 
O, thou old warrior, let us yield to Heaven ! 
Come, plant we here in earth our angry spears, 
And make a truce, and sit upon this sand, 
And pledge each other in red wine, like friends, 
And thou shalt talk to me of Rustum's deeds. 
There are enough foes in the Persian host, 
Whom I may meet, and strike, and feel no pang; 
Champions enough Afrasiab has, whom thou 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 63 

May'st fight; fight them, when they confront thy 

spear ! 
But oh, let there be peace 'twixt thee and me!" 

He ceased, but while he spake, Rustum had risen, 
And stood erect, trembling with rage; his club 
He left to lie, but had regain'd his spear, 
Whose fiery point now in his mail'd right-hand 
Blazed bright and baleful, like that autumn-star, 
The baleful sign of fevers; 202 dust had soil'd 
His stately crest, and dimm'd his glittering arms. 
His breast heaved, his lips foam'd, and twice his 

voice 
Was choked with rage; at last these words broke 

way: — 
" Girl! nimble with thy feet, not with thy hands! 
Curl'd minion, dancer, coiner of sweet words! 
Fight, let me hear thy hateful voice no more! 
Thou art not in Afrasiab's gardens now 
With Tartar girls, with whom thou art wont to dance; 
But on the Oxus-sands, and in the dance 
Of battle, and with me, who make no play 
Of war; I fight it out, and hand to hand. 
Speak not to me of truce, and pledge, and wine! 
Remember all thy valor; try thy feints 
And cunning! all the pity I had is gone; 
Because thou hast shamed me before both the hosts 
With thy light skipping tricks, and thy girl's wiles" 

He spoke, and Sohrab kindled at his taunts," 
And he too drew his sword; at once they rush'd 



64 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Together, as two eagles on one prey 203 

Come rushing down together from the clouds, 

One from the east, one from the west; their shields 

Dash'd with a clang together, and a din 

Rose, such as that the sinewy woodcutters 

Make often in the forest's heart at morn, 

Of hewing axes, crashing tree — such blows 

Rustum and Sohrab on each other hail'd. 

And you wonld say that sun and stars took part 

In that unnatural conflict; for a cloud 

Grew suddenly in heaven, and dark'd the sun 

Over the fighters' heads; and a wind rose 

Under their feet, and moaning swept the plain, 

And a sandy whirlpool wrapp'd the pair. 

In gloom they twain were wrapp'd, and they alone; 

For both the on-looking hosts on either hand 

Stood in broad daylight, and the sky was pure, 

And the sun sparkled on the Oxus stream. 

But in the gloom they fought, with blood-shot eyes 

And labouring breath ; first Rustum struck the shield 

Which Sohrab held stiff out; the steel-spiked spear 

Rent the tough plates, but fail'd to reach the skin, 

And Rustum pluck'd it back with angry groan. 

Then Sohrab with his sword smote Rustum's helm, 

Nor clove its steel quite through; but all the crest 

He shore away, and that proud horsehair plume, 

Never till then defiled, sank to the dust; 

And Rustum bow'd his head; but then the gloom 

Grew blacker; thunder rumbled in the air, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 



65 



And lightnings rent the cloud; and Ruksh, the horse, 

Who stood at hand, utter'd a dreadful cry; — 

No horse's cry was that, most like the roar 

Of some pain'd desert-lion, who all day 

Has trail'd the hunter's javelin in his side, 

And comes at night to die upon the sand — 

The two hosts heard that cry, and quaked for fear, 

And Oxus curdled as it cross'd his stream. 

But Sohrab heard, and quail'd not, but rush'd on, 

And struck again; and again Rustum bow'd 

His head; but this time all the blade, like glass, 

Sprang in a thousand shivers on the helm, 

And in the hand the hilt remain'd alone. 

Then Rustum raised his head; his dreadful eyes 

Glared, and he shook on high his menacing spear, 

And shouted: Rtistum! — Sohrab heard that shout, 

And shrank amazed: back he recoil'd one step, 

And scann'd with blinking eyes the advancing forn>; 

And then he stood bewilder'd; and he dropp'd ^ 

His covering shield, and the spear pierced his side. 

He reel'd, and staggering back, sank to the ground; 

And then the gloom dispersed, and the wind fell, 

And the bright sun broke forth, and melted all 

The cloud; and the two armies saw the pair — 

Saw Rustum standing, safe upon his feet, 

And Sohrab, wounded, on the bloody sand. 

Then, with a bitter smile, Rustum began: — 
"Sohrab, thou thoughtest in thy mind to kill 
A Persian lord this day, and strip his corpse, 



66 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

And bear thy trophies to Afrasiab's tent. 

Or else that the great Rustum would come down 

Himself to fight, and that thy wiles would move 

His heart to take a gift, and let thee go. 

And then that all the Tartar host would praise 

Thy courage or thy craft, and spread thy fame, 

To glad thy father in his weak old age. 

Fool, thou art slain, and by an unknown man ! 

Dearer to the red jackals shalt thou be 

Than to thy friends, and to thy father old." 

And, with a fearless mien, Sohrab replied: — 
"Unknown thou art; yet thy fierce vaunt is vain. 
Thou dost not slay me, proud and boastful man! 
No! Rustum slays me, and this filial heart. 
For were I match'd with ten such men as thee, 
And I were that which till to-day I was, 
They should be lying here, I standing there. 
But that beloved name unnerved my arm — 
That name, and something, I confess, in thee, 
Which troubles all my heart, and made my shield 
Fall; and thy spear transfix'd an unarm'd foe. 
And now thou boastest, and insult'st my fate, 
But hear thou this, fierce man, tremble to hear: 
The mighty Rustum shall avenge my death ! 
My father, whom I seek through all the world, 
He shall avenge my death, and punish thee ! " 

As when some hunter in the spring hath found 
A breeding eagle 201 sitting on her nest, 
Upon the craggy isle of a hill-lake, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 67 

And pierced her with an arrow as she rose, 
And followed her to find her where she fell 
Far off; anon her mate comes winging back 
From hunting, and a great way off descries 
His huddling young left sole; at that, he checks 
His pinion, and with short, uneasy sweeps 
Circles above his eyry, with loud screams 
Chiding his mate back to her nest; but she 
Lies dying, with the arrow in her side, 
In some far stony gorge out of his ken, 
A heap of fluttering feathers — never more 
Shall the lake glass her, flying over it; 
Never the black and dripping precipices 
Echo her stormy scream as she sails by — 
As that poor bird flies home, nor knows his loss, 
So Rustum knew not his own loss, but stood 
Over his dying son, and knew him not. 

But, with a cold, incredulous voice, he said: — 
"What prate is this of fathers and revenge? 
The mighty Rustum never had a son." 

And, with a failing voice, Sohrab replied: — 
"Ah yes, he had! and that lost son am I. 
Surely the news will one day reach his ear, 
Reach Rustum, where he sits, and tarries long, 
Somewhere, I know not where, but far from here; 
And pierce him like a stab, and make him leap 
To arms, and cry for vengeance upon thee, 
Fierce man, bethink thee, for an only son! 
What will that grief, what will that vengeance be? 



68 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Oh, could I live, till I that grief had seen! 
Yet him I pity not so much, but her, 
My mother, who in Ader-baijan dwells 
With that old king, her father, who grows grey 
With age, and rules over the valiant Koords. 205 
Her most I pity, who no more will see 
Sohrab returning from the Tartar camp, 
With spoils and honour, when the war is done, 
But a dark rumour will be bruited up, 
From tribe to tribe, until it reach her ear; 
And then will that defenseless woman learn 
That Sohrab will rejoice her sight no more, 
But that in battle with a nameless foe, 
By the far-distant Oxus, he is slain." 

He spoke; and as he ceased, he wept aloud, 
Thinking of her he left, and his own death. 

He spoke; but Rustum listen'd, plunged in 
thought. 
Nor did he yet believe it was his son 
Who spoke, although he call'd back names he knew; 
For he had had sure tidings that the babe, 
Which was in Ader-baijan 132 born to him, 
Had been a puny girl, no boy at all — 
So that sad mother sent him word, for fear 
Rustum should seek the boy, to train in arms. 
And so he deem'd that either Sohrab took, 
By a false boast, the name of Rustum's son; 
Or that men gave it him, to swell his fame. 
So deem'd he; yet he listen'd, plunged in thought; 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 



6 9 



And his soul set to grief, as the vast tide 
Of the bright rocking Ocean sets to shore 
At the full moon; tears gather'd in his eyes; 
For he remember'd his own early youth, 
And all its bounding rapture; as, at dawn, 
The shepherd from his mountain-lodge descries 
A far, bright city, smitten by the sun, 
Through many rolling clouds — so Rustum saw 
His youth; saw Sohrab's mother, in her bloom; 
And that old king, her father, who loved so well 
His wandering guest, and gave him his fair child 
With joy; and all the pleasant life they led, 
They three, in that long-distant summer-time — 
The castle, and the dewy woods, and hunt 
And hound, and morn on those delightful hills 
In Ader-baijan. And he saw that Youth, 
Of age and looks to be his own dear son, 
Piteous and lovely, lying on the sand, 
Like some rich hyacinth 206 which by the scythe 
Of an unskilful gardener has been cut, 
Mowing the garden grass-plots near its bed, 
And lies, a fragrant tower of purple bloom, 
On the mown, dying grass — so Sohrab lay, 
Lovely in death, upon the common sand. 
And Rustum gazed on him with grief, and said: — 

' ' O Sohrab, thou indeed art such a son 
Whom Rustum, wert thou his, might well have loved! 
Yet here thou errest, Sohrab, or else men 
Have told thee false — thou art not Rustum's son. 



7<D SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

For Rustum had no son; one child he had — 
But one — a girl; who with her mother now 
Plies some light female task, nor dreams of us — 
Of us she dreams not, nor of wounds, nor war." 

But Sohrab answered him in wrath; for now 
The anguish of the deep-fix'd spear grew fierce, 
And he desired to draw forth the steel, 
And let the blood flow free, and so to die — 
But first he would convince his stubborn foe; 
And, rising sternly on one arm, he said: — 

" Man, who art thou who dost deny my words? 
Truth sits upon the lips of dying men, 
And falsehood, while I lived, was far from mine. 
I tell thee, prick'd upon this arm I bear 
That seal which Rustum to my mother gave, 
That she might prick it on the babe she bore." 

He spoke; and all the blood left Rustum's cheeks; 
And his knees totter'd, and he smote his hand 
Against his breast, his heavy mailed hand, 
That the hard iron corselet 207 clank'd aloud, 
And to his heart he press'd the other hand, 
And in a hollow voice he spake, and said: — 

"Sohrab, that were a proof which could not lie! 
If thou show this, then art thou Rustum's son." 

Then, with weak hasty fingers, Sohrab loosed 
His belt, and near the shoulder bared his arm, 
And showed a sign in faint vermilion points 
Prick'd ; as a cunning workman, in Pekin, 
Pricks with vermilion some clear porcelain 208 vase, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM Jl 

An emperor's gift — at early morn he paints, 

And all day long, and, when night comes, the lamp 

Lights up his studious forehead and thin hands — 

So delicately prick'd the sign appear'd 

On Sohrab's arm, the sign of Rustum's seal. 

It was that griffin, 209 which of old rear'd Zal, 

Rustum's great father, whom they left to die, 1 

A helpless babe, among the mountain-rocks; 

Him that kind creature found, and rear'd, and loved — 

Then Rustum took it for his glorious sign. 

And Sohrab bared that image on his arm, 

And himself scann'd it long with mournful eyes, 

And then he touch'd it with his hand and said: — 

' ' How say'st thou ? Is that sign the proper sign 
Of Rustum's son, or of some other man's?" 
He spoke; but Rustum gazed, and gazed, and stood 
Speechless; and then he utter'd one sharp cry: 
"O boy — thy father 7" — and his voice choked there. 
And then a dark cloud pass'd before his eyes, 
And his head swam, and he sank down to earth. 
But Sohrab crawl'd to where he lay, and cast 
His arms about his neck, and kiss'd his lips, 
And with fond, faltering fingers stroked his cheeks, 
Trying to call him back to life ; and life 
Came back to Rustum, and he oped his eyes, 
And they stood wide with horror; and he seized 
In both his hands the dust which lay around, 
And threw it on his head, and smirch'd his hair, — 
His hair, and face, and beard, and glittering arms; 



72 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

And strong convulsive groanings shook his breast, 
And his sobs choked him; and he clutch'd his sword, 
To draw it, and forever let life out. 
But Sohrab saw his thought, and held his hands, 
And with a soothing voice he spoke, and said: — 

"Father, forbear! for I but meet to-day 
The doom which at my birth was written down 
In Heaven, and thou art Heaven's unconscious hand. 
Surely my heart cried out that it was thou, 
When first I saw thee; and thy heart spoke too, 
I know it! but fate trod those promptings down 
Under its iron heel; fate, fate engaged 
The strife, and hurl'd me on my father's spear. 
But let us speak no more of this! I find 
My father; let me feel that I have found! 
Come, sit beside me on this sand, and take 
My head betwixt thy hands, and kiss my cheeks, 
And wash them with thy tears, and say: My son! 
Quick! quick! for number'd are my sands of life, 
And swift; for like the lightning to this field 
I came, and like the wind I go away — 
Sudden, and swift, and like a passing wind; 
But it was writ in Heaven that this should be." 

So said he, and his voice released the heart 
Of Rustum, and his tears broke forth; he cast 
His arms round his son's neck, and wept aloud, 
And kiss'd him. And awe fell on both the hosts, 
When they saw Rustum's grief; and Ruksh, the horse, 
With his head bowing to the ground and mane 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 73 

Sweeping the dust, came near, and in mute woe 

First to the one then to the other moved 

His head, as if enquiring what their grief 

Might mean; and from his dark, compassionate eyes, 

The big warm tears roll'd down, and caked the sand. 

But Rustum chid him with stern voice, and said: — 

"Ruksh, now thou grievest; but, O Ruksh, thy 
feet 
Should first have rotted on their nimble joints, 
Or ere they brought thy master to this field!" 

But Sohrab look'd upon the horse and said: — 
' ' Is this then, Ruksh ? How often, in past days, 
My mother told me of thee, thou brave steed, 
My terrible father's terrible horse! and said, 
That I should one day find thy lord and thee. 
Come, let me lay my hand upon thy mane! 
O Ruksh, thou art more fortunate than I; 
For thou hast gone where I shall never go, 
And snuff'd the breezes of my father's home. 
And thou hast trod the sands of Seistan, 
And seen the River of Helmund, 210 and the Lake 
Of Zirrah ; 2U and the aged Zal himself 
Has often stroked thy neck, and given thee food, 
Corn in a golden platter soak'd with wine, 
And said: O Ruksh! bear Rustum well! — but I 
Have never known my grandsire's furrow'd face, 
Nor seen his lofty house in Seistan, 
Nor slaked my thirst at .the clear Helmund stream ; 
But lodged among my father's foes, and seen 



74 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Afrasiab's cities only, Samarcand, 131 
Bokhara," 9 and lone Khiva 150 in the waste, 
And the black Toorkmun tents; 128 and only drunk 
The desert rivers, Moorghab and Tejend, 212 
Kohik, 213 and where the Kalmuks 211 feed their sheep, 
The northern Sir; 159 and this great Oxus stream, 
The yellow Oxus, 215 by whose brink I die." 
And, with a heavy groan, Rustum bewail'd: — 

" Oh, that its waves were flowing over me! 
Oh, that I saw its grains of yellow silt 216 
Roll tumbling in the current o'er my head!" 
But with a grave, mild voice, Sohrab replied: — 
"Desire not that, my father! thou must live. 
For some are born to do great deeds, and live, 
As some are born to be obscured, and die. 
Do thou the deeds I die too young to do, 
And reap a second glory in thine age; 
Thou art my father, and thy gain is mine. 
But come! thou seest this great host of men 
Which follow me; I pray thee slay not these! 
Let me entreat for them; what have they done? 
They follow'd me, my hope, my fame, my star. 
Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace, 
But me thou must bear hence, not send with them, 
But carry me with thee to Seistan, 
And place me on a bed, and mourn for me, 
Thou, and the snow-haired Zal, and all thy friends. 
And thou must lay me in that lovely earth, 
And heap a stately mound above my bones, 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 75 

And plant a far-seen pillar over all, 
That so the passing horsemen on the waste 
May see my tomb a great way off, and cry: 
Sohrab, the mighty Rustum's son, lies there, 
Whom his great father did in ignorance kill! 
And I be not forgotten in my grave.' 

And, with a mournful voice, Rustum replied: — 
" Fear not! as thou hast said, Sohrab, my son, 
So shall it be; for I will burn my tents, 
And quit the host, and bear thee hence with me, 
And carry thee away to Seistan, 
And place thee on a bed, and mourn for thee, 
With the snow-headed Zal, and all my friends. 
And I will lay thee in that lovely earth, 
And heap a stately mound 217 above thy bones, 
And plant a far-seen pillar over all, 
And men shall not forget thee in thy grave. 
And I will spare thy host; yea, let them go! 
Let them all cross the Oxus back in peace! 
What should I do with slaying any more? 
For would that all whom I have ever slain 
Might be once more alive; my bitterest foes, 
And they who were call'd champions in their time, 
And through whose death I won that fame I have — 
And I were nothing but a common man, 
A poor, mean soldier, and without renown, 
So thou mightest live, too, my son, my son! 
Or rather would that I, even I myself, 
Might now be lying on this bloody sand, 



/6 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Near death, and by an ignorant stroke of thine, 
Not thou of mine! and I might die, not thou; 
And I, not thou, be borne to Seistan; 
And Zal might weep above my grave, not thine; 
And say : O son, I weep thee not too sore, 
For willingly, I know, thou mefst thine end! 
But now in blood and battles was my youth, 
And full of blood and battles is my age; 
And I shall never end this life of blood. " 

Then, at the point of death, Sohrab replied: — 
" A life of blood indeed, thou dreadful man! 
But thou shalt yet have peace; only not now; 
Not yet! but thou shalt have it on that day, 
When thou shalt sail in a high-masted ship, 
Thou and the other peers of Kai Khosroo, 
Returning home over the salt blue sea, 218 
From laying thy dear master in his grave." 

And Rustum gazed in Sohrab's face, and said: — 
" Soon be that day, my son, and deep that sea! 
Till then, if fate so wills, let me endure. " 

He spoke; and Sohrab smiled on him, and took 
The spear, and drew it from his side, and eased 
His wound's imperious anguish; but the blood 
Came welling from the open gash, and life 
Flow'd with the stream; — all down his cold white side 
The crimson torrent ran, dim now and soil'd, 
Like the soil'd tissue of white violets 
Left, freshly gather'd, on their native bank, 
By children whom their nurses call with haste 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 77 

Indoors from the sun's eye; his head droop'd low, 
His limbs grew slack; motionless, white, he lay — 
White, with eyes closed; only when heavy gasps, 
Deep heavy gasps quivering through all his frame, 
Convulsed him back to life, he open'd them, 
And fix'd them feebly on his father's face; 
Till now all strength was ebb'd, and from his limbs 
Unwillingly the spirit fled away, 
Regretting the warm mansion which it left, 
And youth, and bloom, and this delightful world. 

So, on the bloody sand, Sohrab lay dead; 
And the great Rustum drew his horseman's cloak 
Down o'er his face, and sate by his dead son. 
As those black granite pillars, once high-reared 
By Jemshid in Persepolis, 219 to bear 
His house, now 'mid their broken flights of steps 
Lie prone, enormous, down the mountain side — 
So in the sand lay Rustum by his son. 

And night came down over the solemn waste, 
And the two gazing hosts, and that sole pair, 
And darken'd all ; and a cold fog, with night, 
Crept from the Oxus. Soon a hum arose, 
As of a great assembly loosed, and fires 
Began to twinkle through the fog; for now 
Both armies moved to camp, and took their meal; 
The Persians took it on the open sands 
Southward, the Tartars by the river marge; 
And Rustum and his son were left alone. 



78 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

But the majestic river floated on, 
Out of the mist and hum of that low land, 
Into the frosty starlight, and there moved, 
Rejoicing, through the hush'd Chorasmian waste, 820 
Under the solitary moon; — he flow'd 
Right for the polar star, past Orgunje, 221 
Brimming, and bright, and large; then sands begin 
To hem his watery march, and dam his streams, 
And split his currents; that for many a league 
The shorn and parcell'd Oxus 222 strains along 
Through beds of sand and matted rushy isles — 
Oxus, forgetting the bright speed he had 
In his high mountain-cradle in Pamere, ,27 
A foil'd circuitous wanderer — till at last 
The long'd-for dash of waves is heard, and wide 
His luminous home of waters opens, bright 
And tranquil, from whose floor the new-bathed stars 
Emerge, and shine upon the Aral Sea. 223 



NOTES 

1. Born at Lalehani, in Middlesex, England, December 24, 1S22; died 
at Liverpool, April 15, 1888. 

2. Poems, second series, London, 1855. Merope: A Tragedy, Lon- 
don, 1858. New Poems, London, 1867. Poems, two volumes, London, 
1869. Poems, three volumes: 1885. All the poems mentioned in this 
introduction are included in the Poetical works of Matthew Arnold, Lon- 
don and New York, The Macmillan Company, 1890. 

3. See Contemporary Review, xxiv., 559. 

4. A tragedy based upon a Greek legend recorded by Hyginus and 
Apolodorus. Merope was the widow of Cresphontes, king of Mes- 
senia, and was forced to marry his murderer, Polyphontes; but her then 
infant son Epytus, whom she brought up in secret, when he grew to 
maturity killed the usurper and reigned in his stead, after narrowly 
escaping death from his mother's hand through a misunderstanding. 

5. Essays in Criticism, New York, The Macmillan Company, 1883; 
essay on Maurice de Gu£rin, pp. 80, 110, 111. 

6. A dramatic poem, the hero of which was the historical character 
Empedocles, a famous Sicilian philosopher, scientist, poet and statesman 
of the fifth century B.C., who was commonly believed to have ended 
his life by throwing himself into the burning crater of Mt. ^Etna. Arnold 
represents him as destroying himself in one of the intervals of a despair 
and melancholy resulting from distrust in the popular religion and his 
own philosophy and an inability to solve the enigmas of existence. 

7. Edinburgh Review, No. 168, p. 337 (October, 1888). 

8. He held this chair at Oxford from 1857 to 1887. He had been 
made, in 1844, a fellow of Balliol College, as his father had been before 
him. 

9. The Cornish prince Tristam of Lyoness, according to the legends 
of King Arthur's court, was one of the three most valiant knights of the 
Round Table. He and Princess Iseult of Ireland, whom he was bringing 
across the sea to her plighted bridegroom, his uncle King Marc of 
Cornwall, in whose court he had been reared, drank by mistake a love- 
potion which her sister had given her to administer to her husband to 
insure a happy married life; and from this accident resulted an ill- 
starred affection, the troubles resulting from which only ended with the 
knight's death in his castle in Brittany, where he lived with his wife, 
the other Iseult, she of the Suow-White Hand, who was the mother of 
his children, but whom he could not love. 

10. Balder, the son of Odin, the Father of Heaven, and Frigga, the 
Goddess of Love, was, according to the old Norse or Teutonic mythol- 
ogy, the best and fairest of the gods. His mother exacted an oath from 
all creatures not to injure him, but omitted the mistletoe on account of 
its weakness and apparent insignificance. But the wicked Loke put a 

79 



SO SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

sprig of mistletoe in the hands of the blind Hoder, who, throwing it at 
Balder in sport, pierced him through and through so that he died. The 
gods tried again and again to persuade Hel, the goddess of the world of 
the shades, to set him free, but she consented to do so only on the con- 
dition that everything in the world should weep for him. L,oke, in the 
disguise of a giantess, refused to weep, and therefore Balder must wait 
in the under-world until a distant age when a new heaven will replace 
the old Asgard in which the Norse divinities lived, and a new ideal of 
peace instead of war will dominate the universe. 

11. See The Poetry of Matthew Arnold, by Vida D. Scudder, in 
Andover Review, September, 1887. 

12. St. James Magazine, October, 1871. 

13. Matthew Arnold as a Poet, in North American Review, June. 
1888. 

14. Henry G. Hewlett, Contemporary Review, 1874, xxiv, 550. 

15. From the Persian word firdaus, a garden or paradise. 

16. Khorassan is the northeastern part of modern Persia, corres- 
ponding roughly with the ancient Parthia. 

17. A brilliant monarch who ruled over eastern Iran and northern 
India, with the title of sultan, which he was the first independent sover- 
eign to assume. His father, Sabuktagin, was a Turkish slave, who rose 
to great popularity by his military exploits and became the ruler of 
Ghazna and the neighboring portions of Afghanistan after his marriage 
with the daughter of Alftagin. The latter was also a Turkish slave, who 
had been entrusted hj a Samanid(see n. 26) prince with the government of 
Bokhara, but, after quarreling with his royal master, fled to the mount- 
ains of Ghazna, where he erected a little quasi-independent government 
of his own. It was in 999 that the Sultan Mahmud deposed the last of 
the Samanids and took possession of Khorassan. 

18. The chief place on the military road between Kabul and Kan- 
dahar, in Afghanistan, within the limits of the ancient Zabulistan (see 
n. 81). It takes its name from the Ghuzzes, the Turkish tribe to which 
Sultan Mahmud belonged, by whom it was founded. 

19. See n. 120, end. 

20. The last of the Sassanian kings. He came to the throne in 632, 
and died in 652. 

21. Mazdeism, or religion of Ahura Mazda, so called from its supreme 
object of worship. It is often called Zoroastriauism after the great 
prophet, Zarathustra (improperly Zoroaster), to whom it owes its pres- 
ent shape (see n. 113), or Parseeism, which means "the religion of the 
Persians." In modern times it has three grades of ecclesiastics: the 
dasturs, the mobeds and the herbads, corresponding in some respects 
with the bishops, priests aud deacons of the early Christianity. 

22. The Dekhans were the great feudal nobles of Persia, and they 
preserved as a class the Mazdean faith long after the people at large 
had become Mohammedans. See nn. 60 (/) and 80. 

23. This and other spoil was sent to the Abyssinian king as a mark 
of gratitude for the protection which he gave to the first followers of 
Mohammed while they were still very few in number and oppressed by 
the other Arabs. By the prophet's own advice a colony of them crossed 
to the Abyssinian side of the Red sea in 615, and a second colony in 616; 



NOTES 8l 

and the king of Abyssinia, though, a Eutychian Christian, extended 
them a cordial hospitality until their return to Arabia, in 628, when 
brighter times had dawned. 

24. The successors of the prophet Mohammed as the head of the 
religion of Islam. After the caliphates of Omar, Othmau and Ali, the 
Omeyad dynasty of Caliphs reigned at Damascus until 752, and in Spain 
till 1038. In the east the}' were succeeded by the Abbassides, who ruled 
at Bagdad till 1258, and in Egypt till 1577. In that year the last of the 
Abbassides made over the rights of his family to the caliphate to Selim 
I, Sultan of the Ottoman empire, and his successors have ever since 
claimed to be the Commanders of the Faithful. 

25. The Pahlavi or Pehlevi, the official written language of the gov- 
ernment and priesthood of Persia during the Sassanian period (n. 20, end). 
It was derived from the old Persian, known to lis in the cuneiform or 
arrow-shaped inscriptions of Cyrus (n. 105) and his successors, and from 
it has sprung the new Persian, in which Firdausi wrote. The modern 
Persian is written with the Arabic alphabet, and the Pahlavi was writ- 
ten with that of the old Aramaic or Syriac, with which it had no affini- 
ties, but which had been the popular language of much of the western 
portion (Mesopotamia and Syria) of the second Iranian empire and was 
often employed in its official documents. 

26. A dynasty which sprang up in the ninth century in the region 
around the upper Oxus (Transoxiana, seen. 149) and afterwards extended 
its sway over Khorassan and the whole of eastern Iran. Saman, its 
founder, was a Tartar chief, who claimed descent from the old Sassanian 
kings. 

27. The country between modern Persia, India and Beluchistan. 
It was one of the earliest seats of Indo-Iranian civilization (see n. 36) and 
was the scene of the most heroic episodes of Persian tradition. It in- 
cludes most of the land over which Rustam's family ruled (see nn. 81, 
135) and some of its nobles claim to be descended from him and other 
heroes and kings whose exploits are recounted in the Shah Nama. It 
separated from the Parthian Confederation (see n. 120, IT 4) as early as 
A.D. 58, and was afterwards, for several hundred years at least, subject 
to the powerful dynasty called by the Hindus the Turushka, to which 
the famous patron of Buddhism (Kanishka) belonged, which ruled over 
Kashmir and all northern India (see n. 119, T[ 2). 

28. See n. 135. 

29. See notes 153 and 212. 

30. The region between the Caspian and Aral seas and the Altai 
mountains, stretching along the northern frontier of Persia, Afghanis- 
tan and Tibet. It has been from time immemorial the abode of various 
nomadic and settled peoples, chiefly of the Turki stock (see n. 42), whence 
its name. It corresponds to the Tfiran of Persian tradition, but 
much of it was occupied by Aryans in prehistoric times, and its south- 
ern portion at least has at intervals belonged to Iran within the historic 
period. 

31. Equivalent to the ancient Gedrosia. It lies on the Arabian sea 
south of Afghanistan, and is separated from the basin of the Indus by 
the Hala mountains. It includes the southwestern part of the great 
plateau of Iran, and takes its present name from the Baluches, a people 



82 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

speaking a language of Iranian origin which has formed the bulk of the 
population from time immemorial, though the royal power or Khanate 
is in the hands of the Brahuis, a people of Hindu origin who have had 
had the ascendency since the seventeenth century. 

32. Media Proper, or Great Media, included the present Persian prov- 
inces of Ardilan and Irak-Ajemi, lying chiefly between the mountain 
ranges that skirt the southern shores of the Caspian and the lower por- 
tion of the Tigris basin; and Little Media, or Atropene, which was equiv- 
alent to the present Azerbaijan or Persian Armenia. 

33. See notes 123. 126, 222. 

34. Bactria, or Bactriana, lies between the Oxus river and the Hindu 
Kush mountains, with the Pamir (see n. 127) to the east and the oasis 
of Merv to the west. It formed a part of the Persian empire as organ- 
ized by Cyrus the Great, and after its fall became an independent king- 
dom subject to a Greek dynasty. The city of Balkh was its capital. 

35. The branch of the Aryan people that crossed over the mountains 
from Bactria into the plains of the Sindhu (Indus) river were called by 
those who had remained behind the Hindus, or people of the Hindhu 
river (this being the Iranian pronunciation of the word Sindhu, as the 
Persians always changed s to //) . They still retained that appellation 
after they had spread over the whole peninsula now called by Europeans 
by the Persian name of Hindustan ("land of the Hindus ") ; and the 
word is now commonly applied to any native inhabitant of that coun- 
try, even though descended from the Mongoloid races (Dravidians and 
Kolarians) who occupied it before the Aryan conquest. 

36. Or, more precisely, of people derived from the western and south- 
ern migrations of the Aryan peoples from central Asia. Whether 
the Aryan race as a whole (including Graeco- Romans, Celts, Teutons, 
Slavs and Lithuanians) originated in Asia, as formerly held by all com- 
petent scholars, or in Europe, as many of the most eminent ethnolo- 
gists now maintain, it is certain that the Aryan Bactrians, Medes, Per- 
sians and Hindus radiated from a point in the region of the Pamir 
mountains, while on the other hand such Aryan elements as enter into 
the mixed population of Armenia and Asia Minor are derived directly 
from European colonies. The ancestors of the European Aryans may 
have come from Central Asia or those of the Asiatic Aryans from north- 
ern Europe ; it is still uncertain which alternative must be supposed. 

37. Mongoloid, i.e., resembling the Mongols. This term is now 
used to include not only all the Asiatic peoples related to the Turks and 
the Chinese, but also the Malays, the American Indians, and other races 
whose physical characteristics approach the same type. 

38. The high grassy plains that cover a large part of Eastern Russia 
and Central and Southern Siberia. 

39. A vast region north of China proper, south of Siberia, and west 
of Manchuria, which is now included in the Chinese empire, and has 
been inhabited from time immemorial by the typical Mongoloid peo- 
ples. It seems to have been the common center from which all the 
peoples of the Turanian race— Finns, Huns, Turki, Manchus and Chi- 
nese, and their related tribes -have radiated. 

40. The term Scyth or Scythian was applied by the Greeks to all the 
peoples that occupied the unknown region now constituting the Russian 



Notes 83 

empire in Europe and Asia, as well as those of Tibet and western Mon- 
golia, so far as known to them. Those who were met with in southern 
Russia (Sarmatia) prior to the first century B.C., were probably the an- 
cestors or congeners of the Slavs (Russians) and Goths (Germans), while 
those who inhabited the region around the Imaus (Pamir) mountains 
seem to have been chiefly of the Finnic and Turko-Mongol stocks. The 
Sacse (n. 135) are usually confused with the Scythians, but represented 
one particular people, apparently of mixed Iranic and Turanian origin, 
who are the Sakas and Shakyas of Hindu tradition, and the subjects 
of the Samidae, the house to which Rustani belonged. 

41. The Huns, a Mongolian tribe— the Hiong-nu of the Chinese an- 
nalists, the Hiun-yo of the Finns, and the Hunas of the Avesta, which 
at a very early period established a powerful kingdom south of 
the Altai mountains, whence they spread to the south and west. 
One of their colonies established itself, before the beginning of the 
Christian era, on the western shore of the Caspian sea, where it re- 
mained for several centuries. About 350 A.D. this branch of the Huns 
advanced to the sea of Azof, and in 374 they pressed on, overthrew the 
kingdom of the Ostrogoths (East Goths) and compelled the Visigoths 
(West Goths^ just beyond them to make an irruption into the Roman 
empire. With the assistance of the tribes that they had subjugated on 
the way the Huns made themselves masters of the greater part of 
Europe, ravaged the Eastern empire, laid claim to half of the Western, 
and laid them both under tribute. Finally, under the leadership of 
their king, Attila, the son of Mundtaukh, they burst into Gaul, and in 
451 gave the Burgundians a crushing defeat, which forms the climax of 
the Nibelungenlied (see n. 51), but were soon afterwards defeated by the 
Roman general, ^Btius. Their last exploit was the devastation of north- 
ern Italy in the following year, where Attila (Etzel) died, and his people 
were dispersed and, mingled with the surrounding populations. They 
had occupied the region around the Danube now called Hungary about 
the year 376, and for a long time made it their central seat. 

42 The Turks, known to the Chinese historians as the Tu-kiu, were 
another branch of the Hiong-nu or Proto-Huns. They crossed the 
Thian-Shan mountains into Eastern Turkestan about 177 B.C., where 
they became subject to the Mongolian kingdom of the Juen Juen 
(Avars). 

About A.D. 552 they obtained control of the country and conquered 
the land of the Haitals or White Huns to the westward, sharing their 
conquest with the Sassanian emperor Khrosrau I of Persia, between 
whose country and theirs, the Oxus then formed the boundary. 

Their empire was still growing, especially to the westward, when it 
fell before the Arab conquerors from the southwest (706-714). Multi- 
tudes of them were then reduced into slavery and distributed throughout 
the Mohammedan world, but in many cases gained the upper hand of 
their masters. Thus arose several Turkish dynasties in Egypt and east- 
ern Iran. Notable among the latter was that of the Ghaznavids, of 
which the Sultan Mahmud, son of Sabuktagin, was the most illustrious 
representative. The tribe, from which the Ghaznavids were descended, 
was among the first to embrace as a whole the Mohammedan faith. 
This Ghuzz tribe, which traced its descent from the famous hero Oghuz, 



8 4 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 



had quarreled with the Uigurs (a tribe formerly tributary to the Tu-kiu, 
that had now established an independent kingdom at their expense) 
among whom they lived, and removed from the far east to the mouth of 
the Jaxartes, not far from the kingdom of Kharezm (see n. 150). Iuthe 
early part of the 11th century, under the leadership of their king Israil. 
the son of Seljuk, they crossed the Oxus and plundered the provinces of 
eastern Iran, and finally captured Merv and made it their capital. 

The descendants of Seljuk carried their conquering arms throughout 
a large portion of western Asia and established four great kingdoms 
nominally subject to a common head: one at Hamadan, in Persia, one 
at Kerman, one at Damascus, and one at Iconiuin in Asia Minor. They 
overran Egypt (1170) and maintained perpetual war with the Christian 
kingdom of Jerusalem, the famous Saladin being one of their chiefs, 
though himself of Kurdish origin (see n. 205). Their dynasties in Iran 
were overthrown before the close of the 12th century (1194), and about 
1255-65 the Seljuk empire in Asia Minor and Syria feli to pieces as a 
result of the invasion of the Mongols (see n. 44). 

The Ottoman or Third Turkish empire takes its name from Othmau 
(1218-1326), son of Er-Toghul, son of Suleyman Shah. Suleyman was 
the hereditary chief of a Turkish tribe in central Asia; and when the 
Mongol invasion began in the second decade of the 13th century he and 
his son led their people through eastern Persia and Armenia, and allied 
themselves with the Seljuk sultan of Rum (Asia Minor), who, in return 
for their assistance against the marauders who formed the vanguard of 
the Mongol invasion, gave them in fief a little territory on the frontiers 
of the Byzantine empire, of which Er-Toghul became the emir, under 
the authority of the Seljuk sultan. 

The Mongols did not retain possession of the territories in Asia Minor 
and Syria conquered by them, and when they had withdrawn no less than 
ten Turkish states sprang up out of the ruins of the Seljuk empire. That 
governed by Osman was one of the smallest, but he and his successors 
succeeded in gradually extending their authority over all the rest. The 
Turkish empire thus founded gradually extended itself over Asia Minor, 
Thrace, and Macedonia (Turkey in Europe); captured Constantinople, 
and brought an end to the Byzantine empire (1453); possessed itself of 
Greece (1448-60), lower Syria and Egypt (1516), the Barbary states 
(1518-75), and Cyprus (1571); gained a foothold in Italy (1480), and 
invaded Hungary (1444, 1526), and Austria (1529, 1683); but began to 
lose ground after the famous naval battle of Lepanto in 1571. 

43. The Mongols, or inhabitants of Mongolia (see n.39). The Huns, 
Turks and Tartars were offshoots of this people, but it only rose into 
prominence as a whole when it was united under the authority of Jenghis 
Khan. The tribe to which he belonged, the Ta-ta, lived in the 5th century 
of our era in the northeastern part of the Gobi desert, but migrated south- 
ward with others in the 9th century to escape the tyranny of the Tungus 
Kidans. About that time a certain man by the name of Budantsar, is 
said to have made himself its chief. His descendants gradually extended 
their influence and power until, at the eighth generation, Yesukai, the 
father of Jenghis, found himself the ruler of a considerable territory and 
acknowledged as suzerain by many neighboring tribes. When Yesukai 
died in 1175 his son and heir was only thirteen years of age, and the 



NOTES 85 

subject tribes revolted, but tbe chief s warlike widow Yulun took the 
field agaiust the rebels and compelled most of them to acknowledge her 
son's authority. He showed himself worthy of such a mother, and after 
definitely conquering the Naimon, Markit and Karait (n. 162) tribes was 
in 1206 proclaimed king of the Mongols. 

In a very short time the whole of Mongolia acknowledged his sway, 
and he then proceeded to the conquest of China (1215) and of Central 
Asia (1218-21). 

44. The Mongol Empire, at the height of its glory, extended over 
Siberia, all China, all western Asia, and the whole of Russia. 

Its advance in Europe was only checked by the battle of Wahlstatt, 
in Silesia, in 1241. In 1268 the Mongols wiped out forever the Abbasside 
Caliphate of Bagdad, which for centuries had retained only a shadow 
of its former power, either temporal or spiritual. 

When Jenghis died (in 1227) he divided the empire among the fam- 
ilies of his four sons, reserving the imperial dignit)' to the oldest sur- 
viving son, Oghotai. The empire soon became disintegrated, owing 
primarily to the dissensions between the families of Oghotai and Jagatai. 
One dynast)' of Jenghis' descendants ruled in China (1215-1368), another 
over the Golden Horde in Kipchak (southern Russia), 1242-1480, and 
afterwards the Khanate of Astrakhan till 1554; another over the White 
Horde in Eastern Kipchak (southwestern Siberia), and another (the 
Jagatais) in central Asia, until 1572. The Turkish states in Asia Minor 
and Syria became independent, other provinces were lost in a similar 
way, and one after another the Mongol dynasties fell, until by the close 
of the sixteenth century hardly a vestige of the vast empire of Jenghis 
remained, unless the Mogul empire of India (n. 47) could be called such. 
Its power had passed into the hands of the Turkish and Chinese em- 
pires, or of other branches of the Mongol stock, such as the Kirghiz (see 
notes 163, 165), and the Kalmuks (162). 

45. The word Tartar or Tatar had its origin in the Ta-ta Mongols, 
from which Jenghis Khan sprang. The armies of that great conqueror 
and his victorious generals were extensively recruited from the popula- 
tion of the regions through which they passed, especially the Kirghiz, 
the Uigurs, and other peoples who had helped him to make up the north 
Asiatic Turkish empire (founded in the fifth century, destroyed by the 
Arabs in the seventh, and its last fragments, the Kin and Khitan king- 
doms, annihilated by Jenghis), some of whom joined him in a body. 
As a result the Mongol troops were not Mongols proper, but a mixture 
of various peoples, the greater portion of whom were closely allied to 
the Turks, both in blood and in history. Thus the word Tartar came to 
be applied to all the tribes belonging to the Turko-Mongol stock, but 
not recognized as being either Turks or Mongols in the proper sense of 
the word. 

Its special application is to the more or less nomadic tribes of Turk- 
ish affinities inhabiting the Russian and Siberian steppes and the region 
(stretching from the Caspian sea to the Gobi desert and from Lake Bal- 
kash to the Kuen-lun mountains), hence called Tartary (Turkestan, see 
n. 30). Man}- of the Tartars have a large admixture of Finno-Samoyedic 
blood (see n. 164), and also, especially those of the south, now called 
Turkomans, of Aryan and Semitic. 



86 SOttRAB AND RUSTUM 

46. Timur-i-L,eng, or Timur-i-Lang (i. e., Timur the Lame, Corrupted 
by Europeans into Tamerlane), was the son of Teragai, the head of the 
Berlas tribe, and great grandson of Karachar Nevian, the minister of 
Jagatai, third son of Jenghis Khan. Timur was born in 1333, and after 
having been appointed governor of Transoxiana by the Jagatai Khan of 
Kashgar was proclaimed king at Balkh in 1369. He conquered Persia 
and northern India in 1397-9, Syria in 1400, and Asia Minor in 1402, de- 
feating the Osmanli Sultan Bajazet I. at Ancyra in 1404 and making him 
prisoner. 

He died in 1405, and when his empire fell to pieces his descendants 
maintained their sovereign authority for some time in the state of 
Khokand or Ferghana (see n. 158). 

47. Tinmr's grandson, Zehir-ed-din Mohammed, commonly called 
Babur or Baber, "the Tiger," was eminent both as a man of letters and 
a warrior and statesman. He came to the throne of Ferghana in 1494, 
re-conquered the states occupying the territory now included in eastern 
Turkestan and Afghanistan, and finally possessed himself of northern 
India. He transferred his capital to Delhi and in 1525-6 extended his 
sway over the whole of India. The great empire that he founded 
reached the height of its glory under Akbar (1556-1605) and Jehan (1627- 
58), and flourished till 1748. The last nominal successor of Baber was 
deposed by the British government as recently as 1857. This was com- 
monly called the Mogul empire, and its head the Great Mogul, the 
Hindus having the habit of calling all invaders from the north Moguls 
(i. e., Mongols), just as the Orientals generally speak of all Europeans 
as Franks. 

Although Baber' s family was apparently of Mongol origin it had 
been so long mingled with peoples of Turki stock both by blood and as- 
sociation that he was really even less a Mongol than his grandfather 
Timur, who himself is commonly known as Timur the Tartar. 

48. For example, the Cycle of Feridun and Zohak, that of Seistan 
(the stories of Sam, Zal, Rustam and Sohrab); that of Segsar and 
Mazinderan; that of Siavash and Goderzides; that of Khosru. and 
Afrasiab, that of Gushtasp, and that of Isfendiar. Pizzi (see p. 18), 
who makes this division, shows that the most important cycle, that of 
Rustam, must have been originally formulated in a spirit hostile to that 
of the Avesta. 

49. Causeries du Lundi, Paris, 1850, p. 343. 

50. Ossian, the reputed author of the poetical legends gathered in 
the Highlands of Scotland by James McPherson. which furnished the 
basis of the "Poems of Ossian" published by him in 1762. These 
taoems have been the subject of animated controversy among Gaelic 
scholars from that day to this, but it is now pretty well established that 
they were in their present form original with McPherson, the so-called 
originals published by him in 1818 being a mere patchwork, consisting 
partly of Highland folk-songs, and partly of connective matter of his own. 

But the really ancient materials which were the basis of his work 
were genuine, and Ossian, son of Fingal or Oisian, son of Finn, is a real 
and very prominent character of Celtic story. 

The stories of the Oisianic or Finnian cycle, which in Scotland 
circulated almost exclusively in oral tradition, began to appear in the 



NOTES 87 

written literature of Ireland about the 12th century. Before that time 
tluy had formed part of that body of tales the knowledge of which 
was an important part of the Filidacht, or poetic and prophetic art, 
which was a great national institution for many centuries, and was 
cultivated by regularly organized colleges that were an outgrowth of the 
fraternities of Druidic bards. Oisian was not only the hero of a whole 
cycle of legend, but the reputed author of many poems dealing with 
subjects of a similar character, several of which are still extant. In 
McPherson's Ossian the Oisianic cycle is mingled, as it is said never to 
be in the ancient Celtic poems, with the characters of the earlier heroic 
cycle of Cuchulaind, which has been pronounced one of the most com- 
plete poetic cycles that any land has produced. 

51. The Nibelungen-lied, or Lay of the Nibelungs, is an epic poem 
which, as it now stands, was written in the Middle High German lan- 
guage in the first part of the thirteenth century. The sagas of which it 
is composed existed in the form of separate poetical episodes for centuries 
before that time, but they were brought together into a complete 
whole by the Minnesinger Heinrich von Ofterdingen, a canon of Cob- 
lentz. 

Wagner's trilogy of musical dramas, The Ring of the Nibelungen, 
was based partly upon the Nibelungen-lied, but chiefly upon the here- 
songs of the Norse Eddas, which gave the Low German or Saxon form 
of the story. 

The chief scene of the adventures of the Nibelungen, or possessors 
of the Nibelungs' hoard, is the Burgundiau kingdom, which from 413 to 
534 A. D. extended over eastern and southern France, northern Italy, 
the western part of Switzerland, and the upper Rhine, with its capital 
at Worms. The chief hero of the epic is Siegfried (see n. 56) and the cul- 
minating catastrophe of the story was the defeat of the Burgundians by 
Attila (see n. 41). 

52. Mahabharata, "The Great Bharatas," is one of the two great 
national epics of India. It is the longest poem in the world, contain- 
ing no less than 120,000 couplets, and being therefore about eight times 
as large as the Iliad and Odyssey combined. It dates in its present form 
from about the second century B. C, but much of it was probably com- 
posed at least several centuries earlier, and embodied traditional mate- 
rials of unknown and varying age. 

Its leading subject is the great war between the princes of the 
Kaurava and Pandava families, both of which were descended from 
Bharata who belonged to the Paurava branch of the Lunar race of 
kings. They were contending for the possession of the kingdom whose 
capital was Hastinapura (Elephant City), whose ruins are the ruins 
which are still to be seen fifty-seven miles northeast of Delhi, under the 
shadow of the Himalayas. It is a curious fact that Gobineau traces a 
connection between the victorious Pandavas and the princely family 
from which Rustam sprang (see note 79). 

53. The Ramayana, or Adventures of Rama, is the second of the two 
great epics of India. It is ascribed to the poet Valmiki, and the greater 
portion of it may have been written by him. 

It contains about fifty thousand lines, and was probably composed 
for the most part about the fifth century B. C, receiving its final recen- 



88 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

sion at the beginning of the third century, though various additions and 
alterations have been made since the latter date, which have produced 
a number of different versions of the poem. (For its contents see n. 59). 

54. The Avesta, the sacred book of the Zarathustrian or Mazdean 
religion, now represented chiefly by the Parsis of Bombay, is to the 
Iranians what the Veda is to the Hindus. 

The Avesta represents the primitive religion of the Indo-Iranian peo- 
ple, as gradually modified among the Iranian tribes, and finally reformed 
by the prophet Zarathustra in the sixth century B. C. 

Most of the books of the Avesta were lost after the fall of the Old 
Persian empire, and the present collection of the remaining fragments 
was begun by Valkash, one of the last of the Parthian kings, and fin- 
ished by the Sassanian monarch Shapur II (309-380). It consists of two 
parts, the larger and the smaller Avesta. The first contains the Vendi- 
dad, or body of religious laws and associated traditional histories; and 
the Vispered and Yasna, which are liturgical collections. The smaller 
Avesta is composed of short prayers for the private use both of the 
priests and people, to which are appended several fragments which have 
no place in the large Avesta. 

The Avesta ("L,aw") is commonly called by Europeans the Zend 
Avesta, and the language in which it is written (allied to the Sanscrit on 
the one hand, and the Old Persian of the monuments on the other) the 
Zend; but this use of the word Zend is based upon a misunderstanding, 
for it means "commentary,'' and refers to the annotations in Pahlavi 
(25) which accompany the text in most of the manuscripts. 

55. The Veda (literally "Science' - ) or old sacred literature of the 
Aryan Hindus is divided into several portions, each of which is called a 
Veda. They are said to be three, four, five or six in number, according 
to how many of the more recent classes of works are included. 

The three original Vedas are the Rig, the Yajur, and the Sama. 
The Rig Veda is the oldest, and is the basis of the tw r o others. The 
Yajur is simply an arrangement of the hymns, with but few additions, 
for use in sacrifices, and the Sama Veda another arrangement of them 
for use in the Soma ceremonies or sacramental rites. Most of the hymns 
in the second and third are taken from the first. 

A fourth Veda is usually counted, the Atharva Veda, a work of 
somewhat later date, which contains many beautiful hymns not in the 
others and is also a liturgical book, being intended for the use of the 
chief sacrificing priest. 

When a fifth Veda is spoken of, it usually means the Tantras, a col- 
lection of treatises written chiefly during the period corresponding to 
the middle ages of Europe, and intended as a summary of the whole 
body of religious and scientific learning of the Hindu people. Some 
times the Puranas, a body of mythological and devotional works writ- 
ten in the early part of the Christian era, which form the chief basis of 
modern Hinduism, are called the Fifth Veda, in which case the Tantras 
are, by those who set a high value upon them, called the Sixth. Each 
of the four accepted Vedas consists of the Mantra or collection of hymns, 
the Brahmanas or commentaries upon them, and the Upanishads, or 
mystical and philosophical treatises professing to give the true inner 
sense and higher significance of the foregoing. When a European 



NOTES 89 

speaks of the Veda, he usually means the Mantra of the Rig Veda; but 
when a Hindu does so he in most cases means the Upanishads. 

The oldest hymns of the Rig Veda were composed as early as from 
1500 to 1100 B.C., and by some scholars they are attributed to the third 
rnillemum before our era. 

56. Siegfried, the hero of the Nibelungenlied, was the youngest son 
of Siginund, king of Xauten in the Netherlands, near the mouth of the 
Rhine. He won the war-like princess Brunhilde, of Issland, or Yssel- 
land (on the upper part of the river Yssel) to be the wife of Gunther of 
Burgundy, whose sister Kriemhild he himself espoused, but was after- 
wards slam through the instrumentality of Brunhilde, as the result of a 
quarrel between the two women. 

The city of Worms takes its name from the dragon {Lint Wurm) that 
Siegfried slew; and many other reminders of the hero exist in the city 
and the surrounding region, such as the Rose Garden on the opposite 
bank of the Rhine, associated with loves of Siegfried and Kriemhild, 
and the Drachenfels (Dragon Rock), overlooking the river, where he 
slew the dragon, is pointed out to this day. 

57. Roland, the most celebrated hero of medieval romance, was one 
of the twelve paladins of Charlernangne. He was especially famous for 
his prowess and heroic death at the battle of Roncesvalles in the Pyr- 
anees, where he was surprised and slain by the Gascons in 778. 

The Cycle of Charlemagne, to which the stories of Roland and the 
other paladins belong, includes the most famous of the chansons de 
geste, or Frankish heroic ballads. 

The story of Roland appears in the Chronicle attributed to Turpin, 
Archbishop of Rheims (753-794), but probably put in writing not earlier 
than the tenth or eleventh century; and also in the famous Chanson de 
Roland, ascribed to Theroulde, one of the Norman trouveres (equivalent 
to the Provencal troubadours) of the eleventh century. Roland, in the 
Italian form of his name, Orlando, is the hero of Bojardo's Orlando 
Innamorata, and above all of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. 

58. The Cid is the great national hero of the Spaniards, Ruy Diaz de 
Bivar He was a member of one of the noblest families of Castile, and 
was born at Bivar. near Burges, about 1040. He was commander of the 
forces of King Sancho II (1063-73), and afterwards carried on a series 
of wars on his own account (1080-1099). His prowess, especially during 
the latter period, gained him the title of El Campeador, "the champion," 
and from the Moors of Valencia, whom he subjugated and ruled over 
during the latter years of his life, has come the surname by which he is 
known to fame. Cid being identical with the Arabic sayyid, "lord," or 
sidy, "my lord '' 

The Cid is the hero of an old Spanish tragedy by Guilhem de Cantro. 
and of an epic (Poema del Cid Campeador) by Sanchez (1775). Corneille's 
tragedy on the same subject is said to have gained him his title of the 
Great Corneille {Le Grande Comeille). The English poet Southey has 
written a "Chronicle of the Cid." 

59. Rama Chandra (i.e., the moon-like or mild Rama) is the hero 
of the one of the episodes of the Maha.bha.rata (n. 52) and also of the whole 
Ramayana (n. 53). He was the son of Dasharatha, a king of the Solar 
race, reigning at Ayodhya(Oude) in northeastern India. He married SitS., 



gO SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

(laughter of Janaka, king of Videha, the ancient kingdom of which the 
capital was Mithila. Situ was carried off by Ravana, the demon king 
of Ceylon, who at that time was the terror of all India. Rama con- 
quered Ravana, and recovered his bride, who had been true to him 
through all her captivity. 

60. The existing sources of information on the history of Iran are 
the following: 

{a) The ancient historians who wrote in the Greek and Latin lan- 
guages, especially Herodotus, Ctesias, and the Armenian Moses of Chor- 
ene. Some scattering information may be gleaned from other clas- 
sical writers, as for instance the dramatist JEschylus, cited in n. 105, 
below. Something of permanent value may also be sometimes winnowed 
out from that portion of the Greek myths which is of Oriental origin, 
though none of the efforts in this direction thus far made can be consid- 
ered successful. 

The accounts given by the classic historians though valuable, are far 
from trustworthy, as they are exceedingly conflicting, and represent for 
the most part the oral testimony of sometimes prejudiced persons taken 
by men to whose minds the ideas and usages and institutions of Iran 
were utterly foreign and confusing, and who were exceedingly liable 
to misunderstand them. This, however, has been the most constantly 
and fully accessible source of information, and European historians were 
in the habit, until very recently, of depending exclusively upon it. 

(b) The Avesta (see n. 54), which represents the earliest records ot 
Eastern Iran; as it now stands it is only a fragment, and its historical 
references moreover are merely incidental. The Avesta is provincial 
rather than national in its character; with this proviso it is doubtless 
eminently trustworthy, save for the intermingling of mythical elements 
in historical form; but there is little agreement as to just how much 
allowance is to be made on this latter score. 

(c) The Pahlavi (n. 25) books, which, while representing the traditions 
current in Persia in the Sassanian period, embody a large amount of 
data derived from the lost books of the Avesta. These works are 
primarily of a religious and not an historical character, and the view of 
history which they contain is warped by an almost exclusive dependence 
upon the Avestan cycle of tradition, and a consequent aggrandizement 
of the men and events with which the latter concerns itself. 

(d) Certain cuneiform inscriptions in the old Persian and Assyrian lan- 
guages are found in Assyria, and at Persepolis, Behistun and elsewhere 
in Persia. They chiefly emanate from Cyrus and his contemporaries, 
and Darius Hystaspes and his immediate successors. These are the 
most exact and trustworthy of all the sources, but they cover only a 
short period, were written in an Assyrian environment, and deal almost 
exclusively with the achievements of the supreme monarchs them- 
selves. 

(e) The Shah Nama, representing a tenth century compilation from 
all the written and oral sources then available in Eastern Iran. It is the 
oldest Persian work of a professedly historical character now known to 
be extant. It uses the Avestan story and continues it down to the 
modern period; but it makes large use of earlier historical compilations 
and local chronicles, including the royal archives of the Sassanidse (see 



NOTES 9I 

n. 120, TT 5), and represents to us many sources which are no longer at 
our disposal. On account of length of time which separates it from the 
earlier periods of Iranian history and the heterogeneous character of its 
materials its historical perspective must often be greatly at fault, and 
there may also be an undue exaggeration of the importance of the Sis- 
tanese kingdom and its hero Rustam on account of the fact that Firdausi 
wrote in Zabulistan (Ghazna) and made use of the family records of the 
Samides (notes 131, 136). 

(f) The historians and historical poets of a later date (twelfth to 
eighteenth centuries of our era) written in the new Persian and Arabic 
languages, including innumerable Namas or historical epics, and many 
local chronicles of unknown date, the present manuscripts of which are 
modern and cannot be traced back with certainty beyond the time of 
Firdausi. The writings of this class, commonly referred to in these 
notes as "the Chroniclers" represent what remains of the non-Avestan 
sources of the Shah Nama, but with the probabilities of error increased 
by the lapse of centuries and the bold and uncritical attempts character- 
istic of Mohammedan authors everywhere, to connect the local history 
with the narratives and genealogies of the Old Testament and the 
national traditions of the Arabs. The local chronicles are especially 
valuable, however, as they were recorded under the protection of the 
powerful Dehkans or nobles of the ancient stock (the successors of the 
primitive local kings and the Pahlavas or paladins of the Parthian 
period) who preserved the Mazdayasnian faith and the ancient traditions 
long after the mass of the population had been Mohammedanized and 
Semitized. 

Probably only a small proportion of the existing works of this group 
have yet been studied by any European scholar, and their positive and 
relative value has not yet been carefully and intelligently estimated. 
As examples of those which have been made use of may be mentioned 
the following: 

The History of Taberistan, by Abdullah Mohammed, son of Hassan, 
son of Isfendiar, a local chronicle of Mazinderan (n. 91) and Elburz (see 
n. 142), written in the thirteenth century and particularly valued by Gob- 
ineau (see under h below). It was based, he informs us, on: (i) Pahlavi 
documents in the library of the kings of Taberistan; (ii) a Syndhian 
manuscript translated into Arabic in 694, only seventy-two years after 
the Mohammedan conquest; (iii) the Avend Nama, a special collection 
of the traditions of Mazinderan; and (iv) the works of Ibn el MozafFa, 
"one of the most ancient of Persian historians, and the fragments of whose 
writings have an inestimable value." 

The Heya el-Moluk, a local history of Seistan. 

The Tar ikh-e- Fats, or "Chronicle of Fars." 

The Chronicle of Hamzalsf aha ay, based upon the oldest narratives 
of Ibn el Mazeffa and the Khodai Nama. 

The Ronzet-Esscfa. This like the last-named is strongly biased by 
Semitic (Biblical) tradition. 

The Behr-el-Mesab, or "Sea of Genealogies." 

The Desatir, and the Dabistan al Mezaheb, which is largely based 
upon it, both strongly influenced by Hindu and Buddhistic cosmogonic 
conceptions. 



92 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

The Ktish Ndma, rather a romance than a history, and abounding 
in startling anachronisms, but taken seriously by the Count de Gobi- 
neau. 

(g) Some side-lights may be expected from the literature and tradi- 
tions of the various Asiatic peoples, including the Jews, Finno-Samoyedes, 
Turko-Mongols, Chinese, and Hindus, especially the last-named; but 
almost nothing of a serious character has thus far been done in the way 
of collecting illustrative data from these sources, and this task cannot 
be entered upon until the fuller and more definite data from other 
sources have been collated and harmonized. 

(k) Modern historians, Oriental and Occidental, who have endeavored 
to reconcile the conflicting information emanating from these various 
sources. The Turkish historian Yakut, the Persian Mirkhond, the 
Frenchman Gobineau and the Englishman Sir John Malcolm, may be 
mentioned as authors who have made large use of Firdausi and other 
Oriental authorities. 

To the Count de Gobineau, who wrote his history on Persian soil, 
belongs the credit for the most serious attempt thus far made in this 
direction; but even his work is far from satisfactory, and is out of date 
in view of the more recent archeological discoveries and the veering of 
of the ethnologists back to the old theory of the European origin of the 
Aryans. 

61. Kaiumers appears in the Avesta as Gaya Maretan, the first king 
of the Aryan nations. In the later Pahlavi books he is called Gayo- 
marth. He was called Garshah, or king of the mountain, on account 
of the place where he ruled, which was probably on the Pamir tiplands, 
where a language almost identical with that of the Avesta, the so-called 
Zend — is spoken in Warkha and neighboring villages. a 

62. From deva, a shining one, a god. The Indo-Aryans originally 
had two words for god, deva and asura. Owing to the necessity of a 
distinction between the good powers and the evil the word asura among 
the Hindus and the word deva among the Iranians came in course of 
time to be appropriated to a class of evil beings. But in neither case 
were they looked upon as wholly and irremediably evil, and both terms 
were applied to fierce and powerful non- Aryan tribes as well as to 
wicked spirits. 

63. Several of the Persian historians consider Siamak to have been 
the successor of Kaiumers, and some have even made him his grandson, 
inserting between them the name of Pishi. He does not seem to be 
mentioned in the present text of the Avesta. The local traditions of 
Mt. Demavend represent him as having been at the head of the first 
Iranian colony which settled in the modern Elburz. 

64. Hushang is called in the Avesta Haoshyanga. He was the 
founder of the Paradhata or Peshdadian dynasty. He conquered the 
Devas of Mazana (Mazinderan) and Varena,and is said to have lived on 
Hara-berezaiti or Mt. Elburz. Some of the Persian historians insert the 
name of another king between Siamak and Hushang. 

65. Tahumers is called Takhma-Urupa in the Avesta, which repre- 
sents him as the brother instead of the father of Jemshid. Some of the 
Chroniclers insert three or four additional reigns between those of 
Hushang and Jemshid, 



NOTES 93 

66. Jemshid, that is Yima Kshaeta, "Shah Yinia" or "Yama the 
King." He was the son of Vivanghat, who is called in the Vedas 
Vivasvat. According to the A vest a jemshid came to an end by being 
sawn asunder by his brother Spitura, who had headed the rebellion 
against him and betrayed him to Zohak. His name sometimes stands, 
both in the Veda, the Avesta and the modern Persian literature, for the 
whole race of early kings who are supposed to have ruled in Iran prior 
to the first Semitic conquest. 

67. Zohak is the Azi-Dahaka or Dahak of the Avesta, which repre- 
sents him as the king of Bawri or Babylon, where he lived in the Palace 
of the Stork, and oppressed all the seven quarters of the earth. He is 
probably a personification of the Assyrian or Semitic power. In its 
earlier mythological use the word signified the storm-fiend, who in a 
material sense wars on the kingdom of light. 

68. Feridun is the Thraetaona of the Avesta. He was the heir of 
the valiant Athwya clan, rich in cattle, which lived in Varena, on the 
slope of Elburz. The Chronicle of Taberistan gives a list of ten 
Abtiyans (Athwyas), lords of Elburz, who were descended from Jemshid 
and ruled as vassals of Media and Assyria (Zohak). Feridun's father 
and predecessor in the lordships was called Athwya Pur-Tora, and his 
mother was Ferareng, the daughter of Tykur, king of Bisila, on 
the western shores of the Caspian. Malcolm, with some plausibility, 
identifies Feridun with the Arbaces of Herodotus and Ctesias, and the 
Verboces and Rhodanus of Moses of Chorene (748-30). It is possible 
that the long reign ascribed to him by Firdausi covers those of a number 
of obscure successors whose names have been almost forgotten (see 
n. 78). 

69. The apron of Kava, under the name of "the Kavani," was 
thenceforth the national standard of Iran, down to the Arab conquest 
in 652, when it was captured by the Caliph Omar and disappeared. 
The family of Kava became very powerful and important as the 
hereditary rulers of Garena or Varena, a principality directly south of 
the patrimony of Feridun in Elburz. Mt. Demavend itself was included 
in their domain, and branches of their house gradually extended over a 
considerable portion of northern Media and western Parthia. 

70. According to the Avesta the wives of Feridun were Erenavach 
and Savanghavach, the daughters (i. e. descendants) of Yima, and the 
most beautiful women of the world, whom he rescued from the power of 
Zohak. The first bore him Airyi (Irij), and the second Tura and Sairima 
(Selm). Some Persian writers claim that the mother of the latter two 
was a daughter of Zohak. 

71. The name Rum is applied by the Orientals in a general way to 
all western lands.— especially Syria, Asia Minor, and the adjoining por- 
tions of Europe and Africa. 

72. Khaver is identified by Gobineau with southern Media. 

73. The name of Tur is perhaps a personification of the hostile races 
which have constantly troubled the northern and eastern borders of Iran 
from a very remote period. It more probably refers to a man or a tribe 
of Indo-Iranian origin that established a loosely organized empire, 
presumably about the time of Feridun, among the more or less nomadic 
peoples of central Asia. Some have supposed that the earlier of these 



94 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Asiatic Scyths were of the Aryan stock and perhaps the progenitors of 
the Germans and the Letto-Slavs (Russians, Lithuanians, etc.); in this 
case they would have been closely allied in blood to the Iranians; but 
this opinion loses whatever plausibility it may have had when the theory 
of the Asiatic origin of the Aryans is abandoned. It is certain, however, 
that a Mongoloid element (originally Chudic or Finuo-Samoyedic) was 
never lacking among them, and that in later times it greatly predomi- 
nated (see note 13). 

74. See p. 14 and n. 30. 

75. China, that is, the region across the mountains to the eastward, 
especially Chinese Turkestan and the Tibetan tablelands. 

76. See p. 14. 

77. According to the Chronicle of Taberistan the husband of Irij was 
son of Kyanwesh or Shadekan, brother of Feridun. 

78. Minochir is not mentioned by name in the Avesta, but is fre- 
quently referred to in the Pahlavi works. According to some of the 
Chroniclers he was the son of Irij himself. In the Pahlavi books it is 
said that all the mobeds or priests are descendants of Minochir. The 
Chronicle of Fars puts Minochir at the 11th generation from Feridun. 
It is quite probable that this and some of the other reigns of abnormal 
length include those of obscure predecessors or successors whose names 
have been forgotten. Minochir is plausibly identified by Sir John Mal- 
colm with the Mandauces (730-715) of Ctesias and Moses of Chorene; others 
have supposed him to be the Cyaxares of Herodotus, which is an absurd 
anachronism. He is said by the Chroniclers to have transferred the 
capital from Temisha in the mountains of Mazinderan to Ragha in 
Media. 

79. The relation of the history of Sam and his family (called the 
Samas or Samidae, from an earlier prince of the same name) to that of 
their nominal suzerains, the Iranian emperors, is ver)^ uncertain. Chron- 
ological considerations make it certain that Firdausi has erred in his 
method of adjusting the two sets of documents from which he chiefly 
derived his materials. He was perhaps misled by a repeated recurrence 
of the same names in the lineage of the Sistanese princes: Zal, Sain and 
Rustum seem to have been names of common occurrence in that family, 
and it is more than probable that Firdausi, and very likely some of the 
authorities on which he depends, were thus deceived into fusing together 
the history of several different persons of similar appellations. Proba- 
bly the Sam who was the grandfather of the great Rustam lived at a 
later period than that ascribed to him in the Shah Nama. In order to 
explain the recorded intercourse of Sistanese kings called Sam, Zal and 
Rustam to so many successive shahs during a period, even according 
to the most conservative and critical estimate, of 250 years, he has been 
obliged to ascribe to them an impossible length of life. This does not 
imply any fundamental unreliability in the Persian traditions, but simply 
a false standard of historical criticism applied to the reconciliation of 
independent and more or less conflicting documents. 

80. The word Pehliva or Pahlavan, which is constantly applied to 
the Iranian heroes in the Shah Nama, and in the days of the Parthian 
empire had come to be the technical appellation of the most important 
class of Iranian nobles, is precisely equivalent both in form and mean- 



NOTES 



95 



ing to the title of paladin, applied in European history and romance to 
the heroes of the court of Charlemagne. It is a remarkable phenom- 
enon that the very same word should in such widely separated peoples 
have received precisely the same highly specialized signification(see n. 22). 

81. Zabulistan, sometimes called Zavulistan, is the land of which 
Seistan was the dominant state, or more especially, that occupying the 
upper portion of the basin of the Helmand (see n. 210). It seems to 
have at times extended eastward into the Panjab, and was doubtless 
the Sakaladwipa of the Mahabharata (see n. 52). The basin of the Hel- 
mand was called in the Avesta "the bright, glorious Haetumant, the 
eleventh of the good lands made by_ Mazda [i.e., occupied by the 
Iranians] , the seat of the glory of the Aryan nations, the home of the 
Kaianian race'' (see n. 89, if 2). 

82. Nader or Nodar is frequently mentioned in the Avesta as Naotara, 
called by the Persian chroniclers Nuzer, the founder of the heroic family 
of that name, from which sprang the famous paladins Tusa (Tus) and 
Vistauru (Gustahem), and also, at a later generation, Hutaosa, wife of 
Vistaspa (Gushtasp), by right of whom the latter (see n. Ill) is often 
called a Naotaride. It is almost equivalent to Achaemenian or Kaianian, 
but includes also the immediate ancestors of Achaernenes. In Malcolm's 
scheme of harmony he is identical with the Sasarmus of Ctesias and 
Moses of Choreue, and reigned from 715-708 B.C. 

83. Dehstan is probably the same as the Dahi countries of the Avesta. 
Classical historians say that the land of the Dahae was south of the 
Oxus. The Chinese geographers give the name Ta-hia to the same 
people. These seem to have been one of the Mongoloid tribes subject 
to the Turki kings. The Dahi tribe in the western part of the Punjab 
(n. 199, If 2) are believed to be their descendants. 

84. Zav, Zew or Zab is a contraction of the name Uzava, which is 
given to the same monarch in the Avesta. Malcolm recognizes him in 
the Artukas of Ctesias and Moses of Chorene, and dates his reigu 
708-703 B C. 

85. Thamasp or Tahmasp is called in the Avesta Tumaspa, and is 
claimed by the Pahlavi books to have been a son of Nodar. But 
some of the Persian chroniclers put five generations between them, 
representing the intervening ancestors to have been the lords of the 
ancient Elburz principality of the Athwyas (see n. 68). 

86. Garshasp is the equivalent of Kereshaspa, the name of the great 
military hero of the house of Sania, whose exploits are described in the 
Avesta. Perhaps it is a reminiscence of a temporary reign or protector- 
ate of the Satnidas here, at which the Avesta more than hints. In that 
case his name does not belong in the list of the Peshdadian kings, 
in which it usually forms the closing name; if not he is an entirely 
different personage from the Kereshaspa of the Avesta. He is some- 
times represented by the Persian chroniclers as the son of Zav's 
brother. 

87. Afrasiab or Afrasiyab is called in the Avesta Frangrasyan, and is 
said to have been king of Ttiran for two hundred years. 

This figure probably includes the reigns of several obscure kings 
who have fallen away from human memory, or again his name may 
stand for a whole dynasty, as often happens in histories based in part on 



g6 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

oral tradition. The Persian chroniclers place hirn at the seventh gener- 
tion from Tur, son of Feridun. 

According to one genealogy he was " the son of Pesheng, the son of 
Shanpaub, the son of Wershyb, the son of Terk, the son of Zew, the son 
of Sherwan, the son of Tur." 

Many of the Turki dynasties that have reigned in Central Asia dur- 
ing the present era have claimed to be descended from Afrasiab. 

88. The Rai is the river in Media upon which the city of Rai or 
Rhaga was situated. 

89. Kai Kobad is the Kavata of the Avesta, and is said in the 
Pahlavi books to have been the adopted son of Uzava (Zav). Some of 
the Persian chroniclers make him the son of Dad, and grandson 
of Nurkan, who was the son of Nodar's son Mansu. Gobineau doubts 
whether he could have been so near a kinsman to Zav. Malcolm iden- 
tifies him with the Deijoces of Herodotus, the Artseus of Ctesias and the 
Arphaxad of the Book of Judith, and assigns his reign to the years 696-656. 
In this case Malcolm is certainly wrong. The names given represent the 
founder of a dynasty of independent Median kings which arose after the 
first Iranian empire, that of the Peshdadians, had been overthrown by 
the Turanians. Deijoces, called on the Assyrian monuments Dajaukku, 
is said to have ruled at Ecbatana in Media, which had very likely been 
the seat of the last Peshdadian emperors, a fact which may have caused 

.him to be considered by the Medic historians as the successor of these. 
He was tributary to the Assyrian emperor but rebelled, and Sargon 
claims to have defeated him in the year 713 B C. 

It is not impossible that the Persian tradition has in some measure 
confused Kai Kobad, the founder of the dynasty of the Kaianians or 
Achaemenidae, with Deijoces, the founder of the Median kingdom, and 
has attributed to the former some of the deeds of the latter. But a com- 
parison of the data given by Cyrus and Darius Hystaspes in their in- 
scriptions at Persepolis and Behistun with those furnished us by the Per- 
sian annals confirms Gobineau's opinion that Kai Kobad' s authority did 
not extend over Media. 

Kai Kobad is evidently the Hakhamanish of the Behistun inscription, 
the Achaemeiies of the Greeks. He probably reigned in the northeast- 
ern part of Iran, between Seistan and the Oxus, very likely at Balkh 
(see n. 34). He was apparently a creature of his all-powerful vassals, 
the line of Sistanese princes for whom the name of Rustam stands, and 
who seem to have given him the imperial dignity simply because it was 
not convenient for them to assume it themselves. The Avesta speaks of 
the Kaianians as having come from the shores of Lake Hamun in 
Seistan. 

90. Kai Kaus is repeatedly mentioned in the Avesta, under the name 
of Kavi Usa and Usadhan. He was the oldest of the four sons of Ar- 
pivanghu (called also Aipivohu, Kai Apiveh and Aphra), the son of 
Kai Kobad. His brothers were Arshan (Kai Arish), or rather, as we learn 
from the Inscription of Behistun, Arshan's father Airy aramna; Pisanah 
(Kai Pashin), and Byarshan (Kai Karniin), all of whom are called kings 
in the Avesta, as well as in Firdausi — the word Kai (Kavi in the Avesta) 
having that meaning. He is sometimes erroneously called the son of 
Kai Kobad. At least one Persian chronicler asserts that Arpivanghu 



NOTES 



97 



(whom he calls Kenabyah, probably by confusion with the Kamujyiya 
lower down in the family tree) occupied the throne between the death 
of Kai Kobad and the succession of Kai Kaus. 

In the light of the inscriptions of Darius Hystaspes and Cyrus the 
Great, we must identify Arpivanghu with Sispis or Shishpish (the Teis- 
pis of the Greeks) their common ancestor, and not with the Median king 
Phraortes (of Herodotus) or Artynes (of Ctesias), as Malcolm would 
have it. 

Kai Kaus himself is no other than the first Cyrus (Kuras), the grand- 
father of Cyrus the Great . According to the unimpeachable testimony of 
the " Cylinder Inscription" of Cyrus, both Kuras I and his father Sispis, 
"of the ancient seed royal," were kings of Ansanor Anzan, which is un- 
doubtedly equivalent to Susiana (see n. 205, end). 

The Persians have almost forgotten the reign of Sispis, which was 
probably very short, and, by a very natural mistake, confused the reigns 
of Kuras I (Kaus) of Anzan and Kamujyiya I. (Siavush) of Anzan, with 
their immediate successors Kuras (Cyrus the Great) and his son Kaniujyiya 
(Cambyses), who reigned over all Iran. 

Sir John Malcolm is, of course, entirely wrong in identifying Kai 
Kaus with the Cyaxares (634-594) of Herodotus and the Astibares of 
Ctesias. The prince represented by these names was a king of 
the Medes or Mada, and entirely unconnected with the family of 
Hakhamanish. 

91. Mazinderan seems to have been the seat of the kingdom of Fer- 
idiin and to have been held continuously by the Iranians from a period 
long anterior to his reign. Perhaps the independent nation of Mazin- 
deran which was still the abode of the Devas at this later epoch was the 
region to the northwest, now covered in part by the constantly encroach- 
ing waters of the Caspian, and in part transformed by the withdrawal of 
the Oxus (see n. 12G)into an uninhabitable desert filled with the ruius 
of once populous cities. 

92. The tradition undoubtedly referred originally to some powerful 
chief of an aboriginal race, who bore the soubriquet of "the White." 

93. Sometimes called Arjenk. In the Avesta Arezo-shamana falls by 
the hands of Kerashaspa. Firdausi says that the White Deva spared 
the lives of the Iranians on account of an ancient treaty with Kerashaspa 
(see n. 86). 

94. Hamaveran was a kingdom in northern Arabia or Mesopotamia. 
Gobineau considers it to be the Hauran, east of Palestine, but ac- 
cording to the more common opinion the reference is to the Assyrian 
empire. 

95. Shaheh, that is Sa'is, in the delta of the Nile, according to 
Gobineau. 

96. This king is apparently the Amyrtes of Herodotus and Ctesias. 

97. This incident has led some to identify Rustam with the Harpagus 
of Herodotus. In that case Herodotus has confused Rustam with Piran 
Visa (see n. 101), and Kai Khosru. with his father Siavush. 

98. Siavush, or Syavaksh, or Syavakskana, is a form of Syavar- 
shana, under which name he is often mentioned in the Avesta, where he 
is sometimes called a king. The Avesta speaks of him as "beautiful of 
body and without fault." 



9 8 



SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 



Syavakshana must, as the father of Kai Khosru (Cyrus the Great), 
be recognized as the Karnujyiya of the inscriptions, i e., Cambyses I , 
king of Anzan. 

99. Gersivaz or Karsivaz is called in the A vesta Keresavazda, and is 
there said to have fallen into the hands of Kai Khosru at the same time 
with Afrasiab (see p. 29, and n. 87). 

100. Tus or Tusa is several times mentioned in the Avesta as a great 
hero in the wars against Turau . He was a son or descendant of Naotara 
or Nader, and one of the most celebrated members of that family. 
Gobineau identifies with him the Bagapates, Baguas-pati, "king of the 
Bagus," mentioned by Ctesias. 

101. Piran, the upright and able minister of Afrasiab, has been called 
the Turanian Nestor. He is the most noted member of the Visa or 
Wisa family, called in the Avesta " the sons of Vaesaka." 

102. Gangdis is called in the Avesta, Kangda. It stood on the top of 
the high mountain Antare Kangha, and had a famous citadel, perhaps 
older than the city itself, which the Avesta calls Khshathro-saoka and 
speaks of as the central seat of the Vaesakas (see last note). Gobineau 
connected it with the Ganges, to which the arms of the Sacie (Sistanese) 
certainly penetrated ; but James Darmesteter says that it was in Kniva 
(see nn. 150, 220). 

103. Neither Gudarz nor any other member of the powerful Kava 
family are mentioned in the Avesta. Perhaps the chiefs of this northern 
house, like those of Seistan in the south, incurred the hostility of the 
priestly authors of the Avesta by opposing the Zarathustrian reform. 

104. Gav was the son of Gudarz, a descendant of Kava, the smith. 
He married the celebrated heroine Banu-Kushasp, the daughter, or, as 
some say, the sister, of Rustam (see n. 119). Their only child seems to 
have been Bijun. 

105. Kai A Khosru is in the Avesta Kavi (king) Husravah, "he who 
united the Aryan nations into one empire." He is identical with Cyrus 
the Great, though a part of the glory ofthiskingis attributed to the first 
Cyrus of Anzan (Kai Kaus) by a confusion resulting from the similarity 
of names (Karnujyiya, son of Kuras, son of Karnujyiya, son of Kuras). 
From the inscriptions of Cyrus (properly Kuras) himself and those of 
Nabonides, king of Babylon, we learn that after succeding his father 
Karnujyiya (Siavush) on the throne of Anzan or Susiana he was attacked 
by Istuvegu (the Astyages of Ctesias) king of the Manda or nomads, 
whose army (probably composed largely of newly subjugated Medes, or 
Madas) revolted against him and delivered him up to Cyrus, who pos- 
sessed himself of his capital city Agamtanu (Ekbatana, now Hamadan). 
Two years later Cyrus, who now calls himself for the first time King 
of Persia (Parsu) also, conquered the Shute or Arabs, and in 545 he en- 
tered Babylon, made Nabonides prisoner, and appointed Ugbaru 
(Gobryas) his governor there. He was succeeded by his son Cambyses 
(Karnujyiya) II, whose reign has disappeared from the Persian tradi- 
tion, as the result probably of an attempt to correct the error supposed 
to be indicated by the repetition of the same names in the same order 
(see above). Shortly before the death of Karnujyiya he put to death 
secretly, according to the Greek historians, his brother Smerdis (called 
Barzia on the inscriptions) ; which gave an opportunity to the iniposter 



NOTES 99 

Gumatu to seize the throne. He was a magus or Babylonian priest and 
seems to have depended especially upon the support of the Semitic ele- 
ment. He was overthrown by a band of Iranian nobles, one of whom 
was Darius Hystaspes. According to JEschylus, whose tragedy, " The 
Persians," was produced in the theatre of Bacchus at Athens only 
forty-nine years after the death of Cambyses and at least thirty years 
before Herodotus wrote, two of the other conspirators, Maraphis and 
Artaphanes, ruled successively for short periods before the succession of 
Darius. 

106. This is probably a reduplication of the victory mentioned three 
paragraphs farther on. 

107. The Greek historian Ctesias attributes the final conquest of the 
Turanians (whom he calls Derbikkes), not to Rustum, but to his son 
Feramorz, prusumably after the death of the hero. Cyrus himself, ac- 
cording to him, and his account is confirmed by Herodotus, fell in a 
great battle with the Turanian nomads, in which the Iranians were de- 
feated, and Amorges (Feramorz, see n. 119), king of the Sacae (Sistanese), 
revenges his death by defeating them utterly and annexing their 
country. 

108. The Avesta locates this execution behind Lake Chechaska; which 
is supposed by some to be the Lake Urmia in Azer-baijan (see n. 132), 
but is more probably the Issyk-i-kul in Eastern Iran. It adds that it 
was not only to avenge the murder of Sya.varsha.na, but also that of 
Aghraeratha. The latter, who was a righteous man, was Afrasiab's own 
brother, and had been put to death by him for assisting the Iranian king 
Minuchir to escape from captivity. 

109. This story of the peaceful close of Cyrus' reign and his resigna- 
tion of the imperial dignity to become a hermit (after the fashion of the 
Brahmanas, whose ancient rule of life required them to end their days in 
the forest) must have been 'imagined by some priestly chronicler, who 
perhaps confused Cyrus, the predecessor of Darius Hystaspes as " king 
of the world,'' with Ushtazpi or Lohurasp, his predecessor as king of 
Bactria (see n. 34). The Greek historians agree in testifying that he 
fell in battle with the Turanians (Derbikkes or Massagetae). 

110. Lohrasp or Lohurasp is the Aurvat-aspa of the Avesta. Being 
the father of Vishtaspa (Darius Hystaspes) he must be identified with the 
Ushtazpi of the inscriptions. He was, therefore, the son or grandson of 
Arsha and grandson or great-grandson of Airyaramna, who was a brother 
of Kai Kaus (see n. 90), and grandson of Kai Kobad (Hakhamanish), the 
founder of the family. The statement that the throne was bequeathed 
to him by the last representative of the elder line is confirmed by Herod- 
otus, who says that Cambyses on his deathbed entreated the Achaeme- 
nidae not to let the empire pass into the hands of the Medes. The king- 
dom over which Lohrasp ruled was in Eastern Iran, between Zabulistan 
aud Turan. Darius calls it Parthia (Partu), but its suzerainty extended 
to the west and south far beyond the limits of the region to which 
that name is usually applied. His predecessors Arshana and Airyaramna 
must have been vassals of Cyrus II and Cambyses (II), and are there- 
fore not counted by Darius when he speaks, in the Behistun Inscription, 
of the eight kings of his family who have preceded him. Lohrasp 
had many other sons besides Darius. The best known of these was 



100 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Zairi-vairi or Zarir, whose heroic exploits are mentioned both in the 
Avesta and the Shah Nania, and who is probably the Artabanus of the 
classic authors. 

111. Gushtasp is called in the Avesta Vishtaspa. He had one 
daughter, Humai, and ten sons. His prime-minister was Jamaspa, a 
member of the Hvova family. 

Jamaspa and his brother, or near kinsman, Frashaoshtra, were among 
the first disciples of the prophet Zarathustra, and Gushtasp, as the pro- 
tecter and most powerful follower of that prophet, stands in a relation to 
the Zarathustrian religion similar to that which Constantine bears to 
Christianity and Asoka to Buddhism. He is constantly referred to in 
the oldest portions of its sacred literature, and a whole section of the 
Little Avesta (see n. 54) bears his name — the Vishtasp Yast. Gushtasp 
is the Darius Hystaspes of the Greeks, which in Persian form would be 
Darayavaush Vishtaspa. In his own cuneiform rock-inscriptions he calls 
himself Dariawus, son of Ushtazpi. 

112. This evidently refers to the part taken by Darius in the over- 
throw of the Pseudo-Smerdis. The word Rum is often used in the 
vaguest possible way with reference to the western lands. The city 
to which Gushtasp went was by no means Jerusalem, as some Persian 
commentators have supposed, but Susa, where Cambyses had his 
residence. The young prince, finding no opening for his ambition 
at home in his father's principality, went to the court of the Great King 
to seek his fortune. When Cambyses II died, Lohurasp may have been 
considered emperor in Eastern Iran, but his authority was not recog- 
nized in Media, Persia or any of the western lands, over which the 
Pseudo-Smerdis held undisputed sway. Gushtasp entered into the con- 
spiracy which ended in the dethronement and death of the usurper, and 
soon afterwards was raised to the imperial throne, at the same time 
marrying Atossa, daughter of Cyrus and widow of her brother Cambyses. 
(called in the Avesta "Hutaosa, descendant of Naotara"), whereupon 
his father, making a virtue of necessity, resigned his claim and ac- 
knowledged his son's suzerainty. 

113. Zarathustra Spitama, the reformer of the Iranian religion, was 
the son of Purushaspa, and is commonly supposed to have been born in 
Media, either at Shiz in Ader-baijan or at Rai (or Rhages) in Media 
proper. He seems to have been named after, and often confused with 
a mythological character of the older tradition. The Mazdayasnian 
religion, or worship of Ahura Mazda as the supreme being, is repre- 
sented in the Avesta to have existed before the time of Zarathustra, and 
to have been preached by several great teachers of earlier times and pro- 
fessed by Jemshid himself. Those who accepted the prophet's teach- 
ings were called Mazdayasnians of Zarathustra's order, and all others 
were looked upon by them as heretics. Zarathustra married Hvogvi, 
daughter of Frashaoshtra (see note 111). The Spitama family, to which 
the prophet belonged, seems to have been a very powerful one, even 
down into the Macedonian times. According to Ctesias, Cyrus gave to 
Spitaces, son (or descendant) of Spitama, the land of the Derbikkes or 
Turanians. 

■ 114. Gurezm is called by Firdausi arelative of Isfendiar, and by other 
Persian authors his brother. He is supposed to be mentioned in the 



NOTES 10 I 

Avesta as " the holy Kavarazem," though the use of the epithet "holy" 
throws doubt ou the identificatiou. We learn from the classic historians, 
who call hirn Ariamenes, the ground of his jealousy. He was the eldest 
son of Gushtasp (Darius), but born of a woman whom he married before 
coming to the throne. Ariamenes claimed the right of succession, but 
Darius, after consulting his counsellors, especially his brother Artabanus 
(Zarir), decided that Xerxes (Isfendiar) should be the next king, because 
his mother Atossa was the daughter of Cyrus and therefore the repre- 
sentative of the elder branch of the family. 

115. Arjasp is called in the Avesta Arejat-aspa, and is there spoken 
of as the head of the Hvyaona branch of the Hunus, or Huns. 

116. Isfendiar is mentioned in the Avesta under the name of 
Spento-data, but no details are regarding him are there given. He 
seems to correspond with the Xerxes of the Greeks. The latter 
exaggerated his power and splendor, partly through ignorance and 
parly from an instinct of self-glorification. On the other hand the Per- 
sian traditions, which have, for the most part, jsassed through the hands 
of Zarathustrian priests at one period or another, have subordinated him 
unduly to his father Gushtasp (Darius Hystaspes), whom they aggrandize 
on account of his patronage of the great Iranian prophet and his zeal for 
the faith preached by him. Siavush reigned from 485 to 465 B, C, over the 
vast empire bequeathed to him by his father. In his inscriptions he calls 
himself Hi-si and Kshayarsha, the Iranian form of the word Xerxes. 
Herodotus says that he gave himself up in the latter years of his reign to 
a life of dissolute pleasure, and finally was slain by Artabanus, captain 
of the guards. This may be simply a popular and hearsay version of the 
story of his end which Firdausi found fully described in the ancient 
chronicles. 

117. See note 120, first paragraph. 

118. Bashutan is probably identical with prince Peshotanu, one of 
the nine brothers of Isfendiar referred to in the Avesta. 

Another brother bearing the name of the founder of the whole 
dynasty, Hakhamanish (Achaemenes), is mentioned by the Greek 
historians as having been appointed by him to the governorship of 
Egypt. 

119. Feramorz, i. e., "the illustrious Amorz," is the Amorges of 
Ctesias. He succeeded his father as king of the Sacae (Seistan and 
Zabulistan), and was a very successful and brilliant warrior, having been 
the hero of some of the conquests attributed by the Persian tradition 
to Rustam himself (see n. 107). Bahman (Artaxerxes L,ongimanus) at 
last made war upon him, or his successor, on the plea of avenging his 
father's death (see p. 31) and at conquered and slew him, reducing 
his kingdom from a condition of nominal vassalage down to a mere 
hereditary satrapy or province of the empire. 

Besides his sons Sobrab and Feramorz, Rustam had two daughters, 
Zarbanu and Banu-Kershasp (see n. 104), both of whom were warlike 
maidens, worthy of such a sire. According to Gobineau their exploits, 
and those of their nephew, Jehanghyr, son of Sohrab, are 
recounted to this day in northern India, over part of which the sway of 
the Sacae (Sistanese) extended. Feramorz had two sons, Azerberzyn 
and Sam (III), who succeeded to the satrapy. Sam's son and successor 



102 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Zal II is conspicious for his renunciation of the religion of Zarathustra, 
which the Achsemenidae had imposed upon his family. He and all 
his nobility and people returned, says the Sistanese Chronicle, to their 
ancestral faith; which probably indicates the conversion of the Sacae 
or Sakas to Hinduism, with which they had long been in contact in 
their Indian possessions, and which had a common origin with the 
primitive Iranian religion. Ferrakh, son of Zal II, is said to have had a 
particularly glorious reign, and his grandson Jehrzad recovered the 
kingdom of Kabul, which one of his predecessors had lost. Jehrzad's 
grandson, Mehrzad, transferred the seat of his power to Kashmir and 
Little Tibet (Ladakh) leaving his son Rustam II to succeed him in 
Seistan. Mehrzad must have been the immediate progenitor of the three 
"Indo-Scythic" kings, Jushka, Kanishka and Huvishka.who are known 
to have ruled in Kashmir just before the Christian era, and are called by 
the Hindus "Turushkas". Shah Firiiz, a lineal descendant of Rustam II, 
occupied the throne in the time of the Sassanide king Anirshiran (531 

A. D.). Firuz's son and successor Nejitiyar is the hero of an epic poem 
called the Nejitiyar Nania. He became a convert to Islam, and his 
descendants continued to reign for a long time as vassals of the Arab 
Caliphs. At the present day a number of the noble families of Afghan- 
istan —within the limits of which most of the ancient kingdom of the 
Samidesis included— claimed to be descendants of Rustam. The whole 
line of kings of Seistan is given in the Sistanese Chronicle, the Heya-el- 
Moluk, down to the date when that document received its last redac- 
tion, which was long subsequent to the Arab conquest. 

120. Isfendiar (Xerxes) was succeeded by his son Bahman, called 
by the Persian chroniclers Ardeshir Dirazdest and by the Greeks 
Artaxerxes Longimanus (an exactly equivalent term), who reigned 467-425 

B. C. We are assured, both by the Persian traditions and by the Jewish 
historian Josephus (37-100 A. D.), that he was the Assuerus of the book 
of Esther, the husband of Vasthi and Esther. 

He was followed by his sister Homai (the Huma of the Avesta), for 
whose name the Greek historians substitute those of Xerxes II (425 B. C), 
Sogdianus (425) and Darius Ochus. But both Sogdianus and Darius 
Ochus were illegitimate (the very appellation Ochus or Nothos having 
this signification), and Xerxes II, whether legitimate or not, is a negligi- 
ble quantity, having reigned only a few weeks. 

The first two were certainly looked upon by the Iranians as usurpers, 
and the third can hardly be said to have reigned at all, even according 
to the Greek story. Darius Ochus (425-362) was the husband and half- 
brother of Queen Homai, and the Greeks, who call her Parysatis, speak 
of her as exercising a large part of the regal functions, notwithstanding 
their supposition that Darius Ochus was the legal sovereign. Homai was 
succeeded by Arsaces, called by Firdausi Darab I and by the classical 
authors Artaxerxes Mnemon (395 359). According to the Greeks he was 
followed by his son Artaxerxes Ochus (the Urvasu of the cuneiform texts, 
360-353), but his surname Ochus, "the Bastard", shows him to have been 
(or to have been considered) illegitimate, and on this account he is 
usually omitted from the Persian lists, as is his son Arses (330-336), who, 
his father being a usurper, could of course inherit no legitimate title. 
Firdausi and the other Iranian historiographers consider Darab II (Darius 



notes 



103 



Codomanus, 336-331) the next legitimate emperor of Iran. It was this 
emperor who was overthrown by Sikander or Alexander the Great 
(b. 356, d. 323). 

After the death of Alexander and the division of his empire, Iran 
remained a part of the kingdom of Seleucus Nicator (reigned 312-280) and 
his sou Antioehus Theos (reigned 261-246)until the year 250 B. C, when, 
under the leadership of Arsaces, who claimed to be a descendant of the 
ancient kings, the Iranians regained their independence, and from that 
time forward they constituted a confederacy of almost independent 
kingdoms — according to the Latin historian Pliny (b. 356, d. 323) 
eighteen in number, under the presidency or nominal suzerainty of the 
Arsacida?, who ruled in Parthia. This confederacy, the Parthian empire 
of the classic historians, is called by the Oriental authors the Mulk-ul- 
Tawaif or Commonwealth of Tribes. 

The Persian empire was re-organized in A. D. 226, under Ardeshir, son 
of Sassan, who claimed to be a descendant of Bahman (Artaxerxes Longi- 
manus. His descendants ruled over Iran until the Mohammedan con 
quest in 652. 

121. Samengan, perhaps "the land of Sama", may have been identical 
with Herat, where the descendants of Sohrab reigned according to the 
local chronicles for many centuries. 

122. Fraburz, or Feraburz, the brother of Siavush (Cambyses of 
Anzan) is not mentioned in'the Avesta. Gobineau writes the name 
Fer-Iborz, "the illustrious Iborz," and identified it with i^baras, men- 
tioned by Ctesias as a favorite general of Cyrus the Great. 

123. The Oxus stream. — Arnold lays the scene of the battle in which 
Sohrab fell upon the Oxus, although the Shah Naina makes no men- 
tion of any river near the battle-field. It appears, however, from several 
passages in the great epic that the Oxus usually marked the boundary 
between the kingdoms of Iran and Turan; so that the place as- 
signed to the combat by the present poem is by no means an impos- 
sible one. The context would indicate that Firdausi intended to repre- 
sent the battle as taking place some distance on the Persian side of the 
frontier. 

124. 77/(? Tartar camp. — See n. 45. The word Tartar is used here in 
its most general sense, to include the two stocks of peoples now com- 
monly known to ethnologists as the Turk! and Mongols, respectively, 
and identical with the Turanians of Persian legend. Sohrab's army is 
represented as containing some elements of a different stock, but as 
being under the control of the Tartar chiefs. 

125. To Pera?i JFtsa's tent. — Piran Visa does not make his appear- 
ance in the Shah Nama until many years after the time of Sohrab's 
death (see p. 26). 

126. The low, flat strand of Oxus. — The Oxus was a celebrated river 
of antiquity, called by the Arabs the Jihun, and by the Tartars the 
Amu. It drains the whole western slope of the Pamir, flows in a 
northwesterly direction through what is now the state of Bokhara, 
and empties into the sea of Aral. Most of its course is through a level 
plain, and its channel constantly varies, sometimes to a most extraordi- 
nary extent. Three times since the beginning of the historic period its 
lower portion has entirely changed its direction, oscillating between the 



104 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

Caspian and the Aral. When the Greek historians wrote, it flowed into 
the Caspian sea a short distance from its southern end ; at the period of 
the Arab conquest it emptied into the Aral at right angles to its former 
bed ; in the fourteenth century it again flowed into the Caspian, and in 
the sixteenth century it returned to the Aral. 

127. Pamere. — A phonetic spelling of Pamir. The Pamir is a chain of 
mountains of vast height, from which all the other ranges of central 
Asia radiate, and which forms the northwestern extremity of the Hima- 
layas, in the broad sense in which the latter word is commonly used in 
Europe and America. Its summit is a broad tableland, with an area of 
about 30,000 square miles, and it is often called by Oriental writers " the 
roof of the world " or " the crown of the world ;" though these terms 
are often used in a more extended sense to include the Tibetan ranges 
as well, which have a general trend to the eastward at right angles to 
the Pamir. It completely separates the two halves of Asia, presenting 
an almost impassible barrier to migrations and invasions. The Pamir 
is now the point of meeting of the Russian, Chinese and Anglo-Indian 
empires. 

128. A dome of lath. — The "yurts"' of the Kirghiz and Kalmuks, 
and the " kibitkas " of the Turkomans are simply frameworks of wood 
covered with cloth. Among the Kirghiz the tents of the great chiefs 
are covered with red draperies, and those of other wealthy persons with 
white felt, but the great mass of the people use ordinary felt of dark 
color. The very poor substitute for the felt strips of bark or a kind ot 
matting made of grass or reeds. 

129. Thick-piled carpets — The tents of the modern Turkomans, what- 
ever be their rank, rarely contain any other furniture than a few rugs, 
cushions and drapings. 

130. Afrasiab, or Afrasiyab, was king of Turan, according to the 
ancient traditions, for no less than 150 years. He was the son of king 
Poshang, a descendant of Tur, the second son of Feridun. For his 
history see pp. 22-29. 

131. Samarcand is the capital of Zer-aflshan, or Zerafshan, which is 
the classic Sogdiana, and the Sogd of the medieval Arabs. 

This land is a fertile valley watered by the Zerafshan, Kohik or Sogd 
river, the waters of which are distributed through the whole district in 
numerous canals and irrigating channels. To this circumstance it is 
indebted for its proverbial fertility, which enables it to export delicious 
fruits of many varieties to all parts of western Asia. According to the 
Avesta, it was the second country created by Ahura Mazda, the Supreme 
Deity — that is to say, the second inhabited by the Iranians. Samar- 
cand, the ancient Marcanda, was between the ninth and eleventh 
centuries of our era one of the largest cities of Asia, and noted as a seat 
of learning and letters. In the fourteenth century it became the capital 
of the great conqueror Tamerlane, who lies buried in the crypt of one 
of its mosques. 

The mosque of Shah Zindeh (Living King) in this city is the most 
magnificent Mohammedan place of worship in central Asia. 

132. Ader-baijan, also called Azerbeijan, and formerly Kandsag, is 
identical with the classic Atropatene, but better known in modern times 
as Persian Armenia. It is the northwestern province of modern Persia, 



NOTES I05 

and its capital, Tabriz, was two centuries ago the most popular city of 
that kingdom. 

One author is probably mistaken in locating the little kingdom of 
Samengan where Sohrab was born and brought up in Azerbaijan (see n. 
121). 

133. According to Firdausi, Sohrab was only about fifteen years old 
at this time. But he must have been considerably older than this, for 
the Chronicle of Seistan names his two sons, who are also mentioned by 
other authors. 

134. Rustum, properly Rustam, the son of Zal, is the greatest hero 
of Persian story, and is at once the Hercules and the Orlando of Iran. His 
family were the hereditary princes of Seistan, and, according to Firdausi, 
prided themselves on their descent from Hushang, the second of the 
legendary Iranian kings. The oldest extant authority, a Pahlavi book 
called the Bundahesh, informs us that they were a branch of the royal 
house of Turan. 

Rustam is not mentioned in the Avesta, but it ascribes many exploits 
similar to his to Kereshaspa, a hero of the house of Sama, who is said 
by one of the Chroniclers to have been the brother of Zal's great-grand- 
father Kurenk, but who would appear from a comparison of the Pahlavi 
books with the Avesta to have been identical with the second Sam, 
Zal's father. 

It is natural that the records of Seistan should aggrandize Rustam at 
the expense of Kerashaspa, since the latter had been heroized by the 
Avesta, and the Samides seem never to have accepted the Zarathustrian 
reform with a good grace (see n. 119, If 2). The latter fact is sufficient 
in itself to account for the silence of the Avesta regarding him. Possibly 
some of the prodigies of war ascribed to Rustam are due to a confusion 
between him and later characters of the same name, such as the Rustam 
son of Destan who commanded the Iranian army at the time of the Arab 
conquest. 

135. Seistan, Sejestan, or Sistan is a depressed plain at the point of 
contact of the present states of Persia, Afghanistan and Beluchistan. 
Part of it is in Afghanistan and part in Persia. It constitutes the lower 
portion of the basin of the Helmand surrounding Lake Hamun (see nn. 

. 210, 218) and the Zirrah depression (n. 211). It was anciently known to 
the classic authors as Zaranka or "Lake Land," and this name survived 
in that of the capital city Zarang down to modern times. The inhabi- 
tants, who were called by other peoples Drangae or Zarangae, belonged 
to the race called the Sacas or Indo-Scyths, whence their land re- 
ceived the name of Sakastene Seghistan, now contracted to Seistan or 
Sistan. On the Persian side of the Helmand there rises a solitary bluff 
still known as Koh-i-Kwaja, or castle of Rustam, celebrated in modern 
times for a long siege which it successfully sustained against the cele- 
brated Nadir Shah in the eighteenth century. This region was the chief 
scene of the heroic history of Iran and is thickly strewn with ruins of 
great antiquity. One class of its present inhabitants call themselves 
Kaiyanis (see nn. 81, 89, U 3), and pride themselves on their descent 
from the ancient rulers. 

136. Zal, king of Seistan, was the son of "Sam the son of Neriman," 
a prince descended from the royal honse of Iran, who was either identi- 



106 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

cal with the Sama Nairimanya (or Kereshaspa) of the Avesta, or else as 
the later Persian chroniclers suppose, the grand nephew of the latter. 
(For hi9 history, see pp. 21-24, 31). 

137. His woolen- coat. — The dress of the modern Turkomans of both 
sexes is a long close garment, commonly of silk, reaching from the 
shoulders to the ankles. The men wear outside of this another called 
the chapan or khalef, which resembles a European dressing-gown, and 
for a head-dress they employ a light fur or sheepskin cap. 

138. A white cloak. — Firdausi often represents the princes and noble- 
men of his epic as wearing a white cloak as an outermost garment. 

139. Kara-Kul, i.e., "Black I^ake." Several lakes and salt lagoons 
in Central Asia bear this name. The best known is the largest lake in 
the Pamir system, and gives its name to an adjacent mountain, 13,500 
feet high, to which the passage in the text doubtless refers. The up- 
land vales of the Pamir are the pasture of flocks of sheep, whose wool at 
that high altitude grows thick and close. 

140. Haman, or Human, the brother of Piran Visa. In the Shah 
Narna he and Barman were the chief officers of the auxiliaries con- 
tributed by Afrasiab to Sohrab's army. 

141. Casbin, Kaswin, or Kasbin, is a city on the southern slope of the 
Elburz mountains, south of the Caspian sea. 

142. The Elburz, Alborz, or Alberz, is a mountain range running parallel 
with the southern shores of the Caspian sea and separating the shore 
country of Mazinderan from the ancient Media, which consisted of the 
western part of the Plateau of Iran. In a more limited sense, Mt. 
Elburz is a part of this chain rising in an almost isolated mass to the 
northwest of the city of Teheran. 

It plays a prominent part in the legendary history of Iran, and is 
usually identified, both by Persian and European scholars, with the Hara 
Berezaiti, spoken of in the Avesta as the beautiful mountain made by 
Mazda, around which the sun, moon and stars revolve, the center of the 
seven regions of the earth, the glittering peak that pierces the sky, on 
which the gods and primeval heroes have offered the most acceptable 
sacrifice. But this poetical description is far more applicable to the Cen- 
tral Plateau of Asia, and, especially as the Avesta constantly speaks of the 
sun rising over the Hara Berezaiti, it is probable that this primitive Elburz 
was the Pamir. After the center of the Zarathustrianism had been 
shifted from Bactria to Atropatene (see n. 132), Hara Berezaiti became 
identified with Elburz and the words used interchangeably. 

143. Aralian estuaries. — The Araldenghiz, or Sea of Islands, as it is 
called in Turki languages, is commonly known to European geographers 
as the Sea of Aral. It has no outlet, and is fed chiefly by the waters of 
the Oxus and Jaxartes (the Amu and Sir). It has fluctuated greatly in 
size, and during periods when the waters of the Oxus were diverted from 
it (see u. 126) has almost entirely disappeared. Even at the present time 
it is flanked by long stretches of reedy marsh, especially round the 
mouths of the rivers. The estuaries of the Oxus are filled with a dense 
growth of reeds from 20 to 25 feet high. 

144. Frore. — An old English word, meaning frozen, or frosty. 

145. Caspian reed-bed. — Most of the east coast of the Caspian is com- 
posed of saline lagoons stretching across the sandy plains for many 



NOTES IO7 

miles into the interior, which in some cases have become, in course of 
time, entirely separated from the lake and form salt pits or reservoirs, 
sometimes of vast size. Its northeastern shores, in particular, consist 
entirely of low, marshy and reedy tracts, which are flooded only when- 
ever a strong west wind has prevailed for a few days. A succession of 
salty fens stretch from the Caspian to the Aral, pointing to a period 
when it received all the waters of the latter sea. 

146. The enumeration of the divisions of Sohrab's army which begins 
at this point has nothing corresponding to it in the epic. The tribes men- 
tioned are those which at the present day inhabit Western Mongolia, Si- 
beria and Turkestan, including the whole territory called until recently 
Tartary by our geographers. They have, for the most part, occupied the 
same general region ever since they first became known to history or sci- 
ence, and the ancestors of some of them must have constituted the troops 
contributed by King Afrasiab to Sohrab's army. Modern ethnologists 
class the Tartars, Turkomans, Kazaks and Kirghiz under the Turk! 
branch of the Turanian race; the Kalmuks under the Mongol branch, 
and the now sub-Arctic Ostiaks and Samoyedes under the Uralo-Finnic. 

147. The Tartars of the Oxus. — There still exists a branch of the 
Turki stock known as the Kara-Kalpaks, or Black Caps, from the 
peculiar high sheepskin head-dress which they wear. They form an 
intermediate link between the southern Turkomans and the northern 
Kirghiz, and are the survivors of a once powerful nation. As a result of 
forced or voluntary migrations they are now scattered over a vast area 
in Tartary and southern Siberia, but their central seat is still in the 
damp plains of the southern Oxus and along the east coast of the Aral 
sea. There are about fifty thousand of them in that region, and about 
two hundred and fifty thousand more are scattered through various 
parts of the Russian empire. They are described as for the most part 
tall and robust, with broad flat brows, large eyes, short nose, prominent 
chin, and broad hands, though their women have the reputation of being 
the most beautiful in Turkestan. They have lost to a large extent their 
fierce and nomadic character, and are now a lethargic agricultural race. 

148. Large men, targe steeds. — Most of the Tartars of the Oxus 
region are of sluggish disposition and of heavy build, while the Turko- 
man tribes referred to below are more slender, lithe and active, though 
often of almost equal stature. 

149. Who from Bokhara come. — The city of Bokhara is the capital 
of the present state of the same name. The word is of Mongol origin 
and means " the city of temples," for the city has long been the most 
important center of the Mohammedan religion in Turkestan. Such was 
its fame for learning, even in Mohammed's day, that the prophet is 
reported to have said of it: " Elsewhere the light descends from above, 
but in Bokhara it radiates upward.' ' 

It reached the height of its prosperity and literary reputation 
between the ninth and fourteenth centuries, and still has 100 medresseh, 
or colleges for the study of the Koran, besides no less than 300 mosques. 
The city is said by local tradition to have been founded by Alexander 
the Great, and certainly can not have been in existence at the time of 
the battle between Sohrab and Rustam, which must have taken place at 
least two hundred years before the birth of Alexander. 



108 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

The present state of Bokhara occupies the whole territory along the 
shores of the Oxus, with an extent of 96,000 square miles and a popula- 
tion of over two million. It only attained this size a few years ago, when 
Russia annexed several smaller states to the original state of Bokhara 
(called by the Romans Transoxiana and by the Arabs Maverannahr), 
which is an oasis near the right bank of the Oxus, on the road leading 
from Khiva to the Hindu Kush mountains. It includes the ancient 
Sogdiana, in the basin of the Sogd or Zarafshan river. At the time of 
the narrative the Black Cap Tartars doubtless occupied the whole 
region, and a few of them are still to be found in Zarafshan. 

150. Khiva, also called Kharezma or Khovarizm, meaning " Low- 
land" (equivalent to Netherland), is a wonderfully fertile region around 
the mouth of the Oxus, and also the town which is its capital. 

It is an ideal spot, filled with foliage and fllowers, abounding in 
nightingales and other melodious birds, and yielding the most delicious 
fruits and vegetables, its pistachio nuts, in particular, being renowned 
throughout Asia. It is surrounded by almost impassible wastes to the 
south and west, and it took Russia a century and a half (1703-1875) to 
conquer it from the Uzbegs. The latter are a mixed people of the Turki 
stock, speaking the tongue of the Uigurs, the predominating element 
among them, which is the most polished language of the linguistic 
group to which it belongs. These Uzbegs, who formerly controlled the 
basins of the Sir and the Amu, claim descent from the famous Golden 
Horde that conquered Russia in the thirteenth century. They are still 
distinguished by the high caps which they wear the year round, and it' 
is perhaps to this tribe of black-cap Tartars that the text especially 
refers. 

151. And ferment the milk of mares.— Most of the nomadic Turanian 
peoples are very fond of koumys, a refreshing drink which they prepare 
by fermenting the milk of their mares or camels. By distilling this a 
fiery alcoholic liquor called araka or arki (the Russian arrack) is pro- 
duced. 

152. Toorkmuns, i. e., Turkomans or Turkmenians. This is a 
general name used by modern ethnologists to designate one of the two 
main branches of the Turanian or Mongolian race which are to be found 
in the Aralo-Caspian region, the other branch being the Kirghiz. 
The Turkomans, who number about a million souls, now inhabit chiefly 
the region between the Hindo Kush mountains and the Ust-Urt plateau, 
west of the Aral sea. The typical members of this ethnic group are de- 
scribed as having a broad brow, small and piercing black eyes, a small 
nose, rather thick lips, ears projecting from the head, a black and scanty 
beard, and short, thick hair. 

153. The Tukas, or Tekkes, are a subdivision of the Turkomans, 
numbering about 400,000 souls. They are characterized by a piercing 
glance, and a proud and martial bearing, are tall in stature and very 
vigorous and active. They now occupy the fertile basin of the Merv (see 
212) a few miles north of Herat, and also an oasis, which bears their 
name, on the head-waters of the river Atrek (n. 155), together with some 
of the surrounding hills of the Turkoman Caucasus. 

There is a Tekes river in the eastern part of Russian Turkestan, ris- 
ing in the Kung Ala Tau mountains and emptying into the Hi. This 



NOTES 



IO9 



would indicate that in ancient times the Tekkes may have had their seat 
far to the northeast of their present habitat. 

154. The Lances o/Salore. — The Salore are another subdivision of 
the Turkomans, and claim to be the noblest of that race, though they 
now number less than fifteen thousand and are subjects to the Tekkes 
of Merv. 

155. The Attruck, or Atrek, is the largest river flowing into the Cas- 
pian sea on its Asiatic side, and gives its name to the whole basin lying 
between the great Iranian tableland on the south and the Kopet-dagh 
or Daman-i-Koh ("High Ridge") on the north. The latter is a low 
range of the Turkoman Caucasus, running east from the Caspian at 
right angles to it and forming the water-shed between the Atrek and 
the Uzboi,-as the succession of marshes and salt-pools which represents 
the ancient course of the Oxus is now called. The Atrek rises near the 
elevated plain of Kuchan, and is three hundred miles long, but most of 
its waters are exhausted by evaporation and irrigating channels so that 
it is only a little stream about thirty feet wide when it reaches the Cas- 
pian, except during the spring floods, when it expands to a width of 
between one and two miles. A short distance south of the Atrek is a 
smaller stream called the Gurgan, which gave to the region its classical 
name of Hyrcania. 

156. Light steeds. — The horse and the camel are still the inseparable 
companions of the Turkoman nomads. Their horses are unshapely and 
small, but are almost unequalled in their powers of endurance. In- 
stances are on record of their having covered 600 miles in five or six 
consecutive days. The native camels are the Bactrian variety, or drom- 
edary, with but one hump. These are smaller than the Arabian, but 
more capable of withstanding heat. 

157. A swarm of wandering horse. — These were in their life-habits 
the true representatives of the Tartar nomads of subsequent times. The 
nucleus of the Turanian army was probably drawn from the permanent 
cities, inhabited by populations of a kindred race but more settled habits, 
which formed the real kingdom of Turan. 

But the descendants of the citizens of the Turanian towns may today 
be nomads, and vice versa. It is a well authenticated fact that the 
ancestors of many of the nomadic tribes of northern Asia once lived in 
permanent and well-organized states, and only took up a wandering 
life when dispossessed of their houses and cultivated lands. This 
has happened, among others, in the case of the Kara- Kirghiz and the 
Ostiaks. 

158. Ferghana, called by the Tartars Kokan or Khokand, is a coun- 
try which immediatly adjoins Bokhara on the northeast and east, 
extending northward from the Pamir mountains between the Sir and the 
Ohu rivers. A large proportion of its inhabitants are Turuks or Turks, 
a people with close affinities both with the the Uzbegs on the one hand 
and the Kara-Kirghiz on the other. They are probably the nearest 
kinsmen of the people of like name by whom the Ottoman empire was 
founded. 

Between 1760 and 1812 Khokand was subject to the Chinese empire, 
and it was afterwards an independent Khanate, as it had been before, 
until its conquest by Russia in 1876. 



IIO SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

159. The Jaxartes, or Sir Daria, also called the Sihon and referred 
to also in the poem as the northern Sir. It is a river about seventeen 
hundred miles long, emptying into the northern part of the sea of Aral, 
and is, with the Oxus, the chief source of the waters of that lake. It rises 
near the Tian Shan mountains, a range running from the northern Pamir 
eastward into the Chinese empire and forming the northern boundary of 
Eastern or Chinese Turkestan. In ancient times one of the channels 
into which it is divided in its lower course communicated with the 
Oxus, through which a large portion of its waters flowed into the Caspian. 

160. Close-set skull-caps.— Several Tartar peoples, including some 
branches of the Kirghiz, wear little skull caps, usually rising in a point 
behind the head. 

161. The Kipchak, Kaptchak, or Kibzak is a name applied to south- 
eastern Russia in the days when it was inhabited by independent peo- 
ples of Tartar origin (see n. 45). It included all the country around 
the head of Caspian, even on the Asiatic side of the Ural. 

The Kazaks of the Middle Horde (Urta Yuz), who inhabit the region 
between the Ural river, the sea of Aral and the basin of the Obi river, 
are often called the Kipchaks to the present day. 

162. The Calmucks or Kalmuks are a group of Mongol tribes, who 
call themselves the Derben Oirat or Four Confederates. One of these, 
the Turgut, represents the old Karait tribe, which ruled a large part of 
Mongolia before the time of Jenghis Khan (see n. 43); another, the 
Khasad, take their name from a brother of Jenghis Khan, from whom 
their chiefs were derived. A third tribe, the Jungars, represents the 
ruling element in the powerful Juen-Juen or Jungarian kingdom which 
flourished in Eastern Turkestan on the borders of Siberia in the 17th 
and 18th centuries of our era. It at last accepted the suzerainty of the 
Chinese, and when it attempted to make itself independent again was 
utterly wiped out, as it was supposed, in a destructive war in which a 
million of them lost their lives. 

Part of the Turguts had established themselves on Russian territory 
in 1663, but returned in 1771 to revenge their kinsmen. Multitudes of 
them perished by war and exposure on the way, and they were absorbed 
without much ado into the Chinese empire. In 1S64 they revolted and 
re-established the Jungarian kingdom, and it has since been annexed to 
Russia. They are still numerous in the southern part of the Obi basin 
and the eastern Altai. 

163. Knzzaks. — The Kazaks or Kaizaks, by far the largest of the two 
main divisions of the Kirghiz branch of the Turki stock. The Kazak- 
Kirghiz, or Kaizaks, as they call themselves, are divided into four hordes: 
the Ulu-Yuz, or Great Horde, which is found between the Thian-Shan 
mountains and Lake Balkash, in Siberia, and is the oldest of the four; 
the Urta- Yuz, or Middle Horde, occupjdng the low hilly country north 
of the Aral sea: the Inner Horde, whose present home is on the Oren- 
burg Steppes, near the upper waters of the river Ural; and the Kachi- 
Yuz, or Uittle Horde, which stretches westward far into European Russia, 
and, in spite of its name, is much the largest and most important of all. 
It was probably by a fusion of Russian refugees with this branch of the 
Kirghiz-Kazaksthat the dreaded European Kazak or Cossack tribe arose, 
which has become the most powerful support of the great Slavonic em- 



NOTES III 

pire of the North. These Kazaks of the Middle Horde have best pre- 
served their ancient type and language and usages, and although they 
are simple nomads they consider themselves all nobles. When one of 
them meets another for the first time heat once puts the question, "Who 
are your seven ancestors ?" so that even the children of" eight or ten 
years among them can recite without hesitation the names of their 
ancestors for seven generations. 

164. Tribes who stray nearest the Pole. — In these we may see a ref- 
erence to the Ostiaks and Samoyedes, branches of the Finnish race 
which occupy much of the northern part of western Siberia. They have 
been pressed upwards by the Turki tribes from the region south of the 
Altai mountains within the historic period. Before the Cossacks con- 
quered Siberia for their Russian masters in the 16th and 17th centuries 
the Ostiaks had a complete national organization, with regularly built 
cities and houses, but now they have become mere wandering hunters 
and fishermen. They worship a god Turm or Turum, a word in which 
some have been tempted to find a trace of a former subjection to the 
kingdom founded by Tur, the son of Feridun. It is perhaps as likely 
that the king took his name from the god. It is very probable that it 
was from this ethnic stem, rather than the Turko-Mongol, that the ear- 
liest inhabitants of Turkestan were derived. 

165. The Kirghizzes, or more properly the Kirghiz, are one of the 
main divisions of the Turki stock. They constitute the largest nomadic 
race in Asia, numbering between two and three millions. They have 
no cohesion among themselves, and are split up into innumerable tribes. 
They compare themselves to the sea-sands, scattered far and wide by 
the winds, but never decreasing in number. Their two main divisions 
are Kazak-Kirghiz and the Kara-Kirghiz or Buruts. 

The latter, the Black or Wild Mountain Kirghiz, roam over the 
Thian-Shan, Altai and Pamir mountains and the surrounding uplands. 
Those of Thian-Shan are called the Left, and those of the Pamir the 
Right branch. Strange to say, they were once a highly civilized people. 
They are spoken of in the Chinese annals as a powerful commercial 
nation, and their own bards still sing of the achievements of their an- 
cient heroes. It is possible that they are the true descendants of the 
original Turanians, who have betaken themselves to these fastnesses to 
escape the oppression of the nomadic invaders who have swept in suc- 
cessive waves over their ancestral home for more than two thousand 
years. 

166. Shaggy ponies. — The Kirghiz horses are sorry in appearance but 
incredibly hardy. They are accustomed to pick up a subsistence for 
themselves as they go along, and they have great strength, and endure 
remarkably well the extremes of heat and cold and the fatigue of long 
and uninterrupted journeys. 

167. Pamere.—See n. 127. The Right branch (Ou) of the Black Kir- 
ghiz are the only inhabitants of highest levels of the Pamir plateau. 
They remain there with their flocks for eight months of the year, but 
seek in winter the milder climate of the adjacent districts, of lower ele- 
vation, on the north and west. 

168. Tartars they seemed, the Ilyais. — The word Ilyats or Iliats 
(properly Hats), meaning "tribes," is used as the collective designation 



112 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

of all the nomads within the limits of the present Persian kingdom, es- 
pecially those of Tartar descent. Their number increases or diminishes 
according to the political vicissitudes of the country, multitudes adopt- 
ing nomadic habits as the result of oppression or other disasters, and a 
portion of the migratory population reverting to town life in periods of 
general prosperity. Ever since the dawn of history there has been a 
Turanian element as well as an Aryan one on the plateau of Iran, and a 
considerable proportion of its present inhabitants are known to be of 
Tartar descent. The government has been in the hands of different 
Turki peoples most of the time since the 11th century of the Christian 
era, and at the present time the government officials and soldiers are for 
the most part of such origin, while the true Persians have almost a mono- 
poly of intellectual and business pursuits. But the settled population, of 
whatever extraction, has become thoroughly imbued with the spirit of 
Persian nationality, and takes pride in all the traditions of Iranian 
glory, while the Ilyats still have the spirit of restless Turan. This has 
been illustrated in recent wars between the Persian government and 
Ilyat rebels; the Persians marched to battle chanting passages from the 
Shah Nama, while the Ilyats stimulated each other's courage by sing- 
ing the war songs of Kurroglou, a famous character among them in the 
17th century, who combined the professions of bard and freebooter, with 
phenomenal success in each. It is an anachronism to represent the 
Ilyats as taking part on the Iranian side in a battle that took place 2,400 
years ago, as they are descended from tribes that have entered the 
country not earlier than the first Turkish conquest of 1038. 

169. Bright in burnished steel. — The Shah Nama habitually repre- 
sents both the warrors of Iran and Turan as being clad in coats of mail. 
The Iranian hosts on a certain occasion are said to present the appear- 
ance of a "sea of armor." The most highly prized armor, according to 
Firdausi, was imported from Rum (i.e., Syria and Asia Minor). 

170. Ferood, who led the Persians. — This is an anachronism, for the 
Iranian host was commanded on this occasion by the Shah Kai Kaus in 
person. Firud was the son of the crown prince Siavush, who himself 
does not appear to have been born until after the death of Sohrab (see 
p. 25). 

171. Pedlars from Cabool. — Cabul or Kabul, anciently Ortospand or 
Cabura, is the capital of the present kingdom of Afghanistan. 

Since the remotest times, Kabul and Kandahar have been considered 
as the keys to India, the first controlling the road to Turan, and the 
other that to Iran. Being located on the historic road between India 
and Bactria, close to the passes of the Hindu Kush which connect the 
Uralo-Caspian basin with the Panjab, or upper Indus basin, it has natu- 
rally been from the earliest times a great emporium of trade, controlling 
the traffic between southern and western Asia. It is situated in a fertile 
plain, watered by a river of the same name, and offers every resource to 
the caravans that undertake the toilsome journey across the mountains. 
It has an altitude of six thousand feet, which gives it a delightfully 
temperate climate. Kabul was certainly in existence before the time of 
Alexander the Great, and is believed by its citizens to be the oldest city 
in the world. The local legends represent the devil as having fallen 
there when he was cast from heaven, and the city prides itself in the pos- 



NOTES 113 

session of the tomb of Cain! This city was chosen for its loveliness as 
the capital of the Mogul empire by the Sultan Baber, at the end of the 
16th century, and a beautiful white marble mausoleum in his honor 
stands in the gardens near the city. 

172. The Indian Caucasus. — This is identical with the Hindo-Koh, or 
" Mountains of India," commonly known as the Hindu Kush. The lat- 
ter is a nickname, meaning "Hindu Killer," and was given in allusion 
to the great mortality among the traders who crossed its dangerous 
passes or risked their lives amid its snows to retail their wares to the 
villagers and nomads of the Turkestan highlands. 

On the south and southwest it is in some places more than twenty- 
five thousand feet high, and several of its passes cross at an elevation of 
sixteen thousand feet. This great mountain range runs in a westerly 
direction from the southern terminus of the Pamir. The name Indian 
Caucasus is often applied to it by modern geographers, who look upon it 
as belonging to the same system as the Armenian Caucasus, which, after 
being interrupted by the Caspian sea, is continued to the east and southeast 
by the so-called Turkoman Caucasus, which connects with the Hindu Kush. 

173. Choked by the air.— Major-General Donald Maclntyre, in his 
" Hindu Koh, or Wanderings and Wild Sport on the Himalaya " (1889), 
gives a vivid description of the sufferings of himself and his party on 
account of the rarified air of the upper passes in this region. It produced 
shortness of breath, an oppressive feeling of inability to fully inflate the 
lungs, and a sensation of heaviness in the body and especially the legs, 
accompanied by a severe headache, nausea, and sometimes bleeding of 
the nose. 

Even the Tartar guides who are accustomed to make the trip fre- 
quently never fail to experience at least a headache. They often eat raw 
onions as a means of preventing or moderating these unpleasant symp- 
toms. The line of perpetual snow is here at an altitude of 16,000 feet, 
though on the Tibetan table-lands, owing to the extreme dryness of the 
atmosphere, it is as high as 20,000 feet. 

174. Sugared mulberries. — Mulberries are a favorite fruit among the 
Orientals, and those of Kabul are celebrated, like its other fruits, for 
their delicious flavor. In Khiva and other fertile oases of the Aralo- 
Caspian region, it is customary to encircle the cultivated fields with 
avenues of mulberry trees. 

175. For fear they should dislodge the overhanging snows. — The trav- 
eler who crosses the passes of the Hindu Kush, or Western Himalayas, 
is exposed to constant danger, especially in the spring season, from 
the loosening of huge masses of snow, often bringing with them frag- 
ments of rock and frozen earth, which come tumbling down the 
mountain side, carrying everything before them, and often blocking 
the roadway and burying beneath them any men or animals who may 
be passing along it. The danger from this source is so great that at 
times it renders the passes wholly impracticable. 

176. Gudurz. — Gudurz was a famous Persian warrior, whose ances- 
tor, Kava the Blacksmith (see p. 20), headed the war for independence 
by which the Semitic usurper was dethroned, and Feridun, the descend- 
ant of Jemshid, placed on the Persian throne. Gudurz had eighty sons, 
the best known of whom are Gav, Bahram and Rehham. See n, 104, 



114 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

177. Zoarrah.— Perhaps Zereh is meant, the man who is a later epi- 
sode cut off the head of the Persian prince Siavush, when the latter 
was put to death by the king of Turan (see p. 27), He was perhaps one 
of the Iranian knights who followed the prince to the court of Afrasiab, 
but he deserted him in his hour of danger, and sought to win the royal 
favor by this act of insult to the body of his former master. 

178. Feraburz . . . the zuicle of the King. — Feraburz, or Fri- 
burz, was the uncle of Kai Khosru, but according to the Persian tradi- 
tions the event which this poem celebrates took place in the reign of 
the latter' s predecessor, Kai Kaus. Friburz was the son of Kai Kaus by 
Sudava, daughter of the king of Hamaveran (see p. 25). He sev- 
eral times commanded the armies of his royal father and nephew, but at 
a time subsequent to that of the narrative, and some of the Iranian 
nobles favored his succession to his father's throne, which was finally 
given to the son of Siavush Kai Khosru. His name seems to signify 
"Iburz, the illustrious," and he is probably the CEbaras of classic authors. 

179. Of scarlet cloth they were. — Among the Tartar nomads of the 
present day a red tent is still a mark of royal rank, real or alleged (see n. 
128). Many of the Kazak chiefs affect this dignity by right of a grant 
of the title of Sultan from the Russian government. 

180. A side of roasted sheep, etc.— This diet, as solid as it is, was more 
dainty than that usually ascribed to Rustam in the Shah Nama. The 
latter represents him as habitually subsisting on the flesh of the wild 
ass, a food still esteemed in that region. This animal, on account of 
the difficulty of its pursuit and its dangerousness when enraged, was the 
favorite game of the Iranian lords, and Rustam was particularly famous 
for his prowess in the chase as well as in war. He is represented on 
numerous occasions as going to hunt when his appetite moved him, 
killing some of these animals with his own hand, and devouring a whole 
carcass at a single sitting and without condiments, to the great admira- 
tion of the beholder ! 

181. Held a falcon on his wrist. — The art of falconry, or hunting with 
the aid of trained falcons, has been practiced in many parts of Asia 
from a prehistoric period. The Japanese were acquainted with it when 
they first migrated from Korea to the islands which they now occupy, 
about 600 B.C.; and the Chinese claim to have hunted in this fashion 
for more than thirty-five hundred years. The figure of a man holding 
a falcon on his wrist has been found on an Assyrian monument dating 
from the seventeenth century B.C. It is still the favorite recreation, both 
of men and children, in the country over which Rustam ruled (southern 
Afghanistan). 

182. If Iran' s chiefs are old, theft I am older. — Well might he say so, 
for, according to the figures given in the Shah Nama, he was several 
hundred years old, and even according to the most moderate interpre- 
tation of the traditional chronology in harmony with the classic authors, 
he must have been at least 110. 

Rustam can speak of himself in distinction from "Iran's chiefs," be- 
cause his own kingdom, though acknowledging the Shah's suzerainty, 
was itself very powerful and practically independent. 

183. Rustam he loves no more, but loves the young. — In the Shah 
Nama the hero's grievance is of quite a different character (see p. 38). 



NOTES 115 

184. The Afghans proper, who call themselves the Pushti, or Pukhti, 
claim for the most part to be descended from a prince of that name 
whose father, Jeremiah, was one of the sons of Saul, king of Israel. 
This claim is in itself of little significance, however, as they are Moham- 
medans, and the historians of every nation professing that religion have 
exercised all possible ingenuity in finding a place for it in the Biblical 
genealogies. But it is a remarkable fact that their features are of a de- 
cidedly Jewish cast. Their language is Aryan in its character, and 
closely allied to the Persian and to the Hindi, the language spoken by the 
neighboring people, but their names would indicate a Uralo-Finnic origin. 

The Pushti claim to have been the earliest inhabitants of the region, 
and must be identified with the Paktys of classic authors, who gave 
their name to Bactria (the northern part of the country), and also with 
the Balhikas of the Hindus, mentioned in the Mahabharata (fifth century, 
B.C.), from which form of the word comes the name of the ancient cap- 
ital city, Balkh. At any rate, enough is known of the general condition 
of society at that period, as well as of the character of this border-land 
at all periods, to make it more than probable that on the southeastern 
(the present Beluchistan) and the northeastern (Afghanistan) borders of 
the kingdom of the Samas (see nn. 81, 135) there existed, even in the 
time of Rustam, predatory tribes who were in the habit of vexing the 
borders of the neighboring states, both those of Iran on the west and 
those of India on the east. 

185. Clad himself in steel. — Steel, which is a compound of iron and 
carbon, exists in nature, and has been made artificially from the earliest 
times. It was in common use in Assyria, with which country many of 
the Iranian tribes had been in constant relations for centuries prior to the 
time of Cyrus. 

180. The arms he chose were plain. — This differs from the account 
in Firdausi, for which see p. 40. 

187. Persia abounds in precious metals, and gold has been mined 
there and all through Central Asia since the prehistoric period and used 
for decorative purposes of all kinds. 

188. The Assyrian helmet, as shown on the monuments, often had a 
high projecting ridge or central spine. 

189. As in the case of many other epic heroes, Rustam's war-horse 
shares his master's fame. Ruksh or Rakush was to the Hero of Seistan 
what Babieca was to the Cid, Goldenbridle to Roland, or Arion to Her- 
cules. He was picked out by Rustam on first reaching manly years. All 
the horses of Zabulistan and its then tributary kingdom of Kabul were 
passed before him one after another by his father Zal, and they all 
shuddered and sank upon their haunches when he laid his mighty hand 
upon their backs to test their strength. At last there came along a 
mare of prodigious size and power, accompanied by her colt, a stallion 
"with the size and shoulders of a lion, and in strength resembling an 
elephant, and in color like rose leaves on a saffron ground." 

For three years it had been ready for the saddle, but the mother had 
never permitted any one to ride it until Rustam came. It had already 
begun to be called by the people Rustam's Rakush (" Lightning ''), for 
it was among horses what the wonderful young prince already appeared 
to be among men. 



Il6 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

When the owner knew that it was Rustam who wanted it, he gave it 
to him, " that seated upon it he might deliver Iran from its oppres- 
sors." 

When Rustum went forth to war or to the chase Rakush always 
accompanied him, and when the hero laid him down to sleep on the 
sand of the desert or the greensward of the plain Rakush watched by his 
side and gave warning of approaching danger. 

Several times the horse and his master had fought together against 
wild beasts, or nameless monsters, or human enemies, and on one occa- 
sion at least he saved his master's life, when he was about to be crushed 
in the folds of an enormous dragon in Mazinderan. 

When at last Rustam comes to an end (see p. 32), Rakush, according 
to Firdausi, detected the danger and did his best to save his master 
from destruction by refusing to go forward into the pit which had been 
dug for him; and Rustam only succeeded in compelling him to do so by 
using a whip upon him for the first and only time in their lives. Then 
the faithful animal was " grieved in his soul " and leaped into the midst 
of the spears, and there he and his master at once received their death 
wounds. 

190. Dight, derived from the Anglo-Saxon dihtan, "to arrange, 
to set in order." This word, which is no longer used, except in poetry, 
means arranged, disposed, prepared, made ready. In its present con- 
text it is equivalent to "girt." 

191. By sandy Bahrein, in the Persian Gulf. — The word Bahrein 
signifies in Arabic "the Two Seas," and is probably derived from the 
two large bodies of water separated by the Katar peninsula which pro- 
jects northward on the Arabian side of the Persian Gulf. It is applied 
to the gulf west of that peninsula, and also to the numerous islands 
which this contains. The principal one of these islands and the largest 
in the whole Persian Gulf is called Bahrein Island. 

It is here that the famous pearl fisheries of the Persian Gulf have 
their center. The great pearl bank runs parallel with the coast for about 
two hundred miles, and no less than fifty thousand persons are employed 
in this industry in the Bahrein archipelago alone. 

The pearl fisherman, after closing his nostrils with a clasp, plugging 
up his ears with wax, and attaching a stone to his feet, dives in water from 
thirty to two hundred feet deep, scoops up as many oysters as he can, 
and comes to the surface with them in about fifty or sixty seconds. This 
dangerous descent is made seven or eight times a day, and the number of 
divers devoured annually by the sharks and swordfishes averages over 
thirty. 

The pearl fisheries of Bahrein have existed from prehistoric times, 
and the ancients obtained from them most of their supply of this gem. 
The pearls yielded are not so white as those of Ceylon and Japan, but are 
of larger size and more regular in form. 

192. Down through the middle of the rich man's corn. — The word 
"corn" is used here in its usual European sense of grain. It is an 
old Anglo-Saxon word originally applied to cereals of every kind. At 
present it usually means in England either wheat, oats, rice or barley, 
and in Scotland is restricted to oats, while in the United States it is 
rarely used of any grain except the Indian corn or maize. The simile 



NOTES 



117 



becomes intelligible when it is understood that there is question of a 
wheat or oat field. 

193. As some rich woman .... eyes through the silken cur- 
tains the poor drudge. — Critics have justly taken exception to this simile, 
which is "so entirely modern that it strikes a jarring note." See 
Edinburgh Review, October, 1882. 

194. So slender. — Fridausi, on the contrar}', represents Sohrab as huge 
and massive, calling him, like his father, "elephant-bodied" and em- 
phasizing the prodigy of such a physique in so youthful a champion. 

195. Some single loiuer . . . builded on the waste. — The erection 
of towers and other fortifications as a protection against the nomadic 
banditti who have always infested the deserts in this part of Asia has 
been of frequent occurrence since the earliest times. The ruins of a 
great wall, with towers at frequent intervals, reared according to tradi- 
tion by Iskander or Alexander the Great, but more probablv by Khosrav 
Anosharvan (A.D. 531-579), to protect Iran against Turkish spoilers, 
extend from the upper waters of the Atrek river down along the whole 
length of the Gurgan (see n. 155) for some miles out in the Caspian Sea, 
the waters of which now submerge a long stretch of what was dry land 
at the time that this line of defences was thrown up. 

196. Oxus ivith his summer floods. — The Oxus has an annual flood, 
lasting from May to October, caused by the melting of the snows on 
the Pamir plateau and the other mountain regions that it drains. 

197. Hurled his spear. — Spears, lances or javelins have been in 
use in central and western Asia since prehistoric times. On the Assyrian 
monuments many different kinds are depicted, with heads barbed or un- 
barbed, oblong, leaf- shaped, etc., etc. 

198. Full struck Rustavi's shield. — The use of the shield in West- 
ern Asia goes back to a very remote antiquity. The round and convex 
form, in particular, is often pictured on the Assyrian monuments of all 
ages. 

199. Hyphasis or Hydaspes. — The Hyphasis is the classic name of the 
river Satadru or Shutudri, now called Satlej. It is the same as the 

Zaradeus of Ptolemy and the Hecudeus of Pliny. The Hydaspes is the 
Vitasta, now the Jhelan. These are two of the principal rivers of the 
Panjab, the part of India just east of the southern part of Afghanistan. 

The Panjab is the modern Persian word corresponding to the old 
Hindu name of Panchanada, or Five Rivers. The Indus flows through 
it, after leaving the valley of Kashmir and receiving the waters of 
the Kabul river; and in the lower part of the Panjab the river Chinab 
enters the Indus from the east, bringing with it the waters of the four 
other rivers which, with it, give the province its name. The Hydaspes 
rises in Kashmir, of which the capital, Srinagera, is on its banks. It is 
also celebrated for a great battle between Alexander the Great and one 
of the native kings, which took place near it in 326 B.C. 

The Hyphasis, or Satlej, rises on the tableland near the source of the 
Indus and the Brahmaputra, breaks through the Himalayas, and at last 
joins the Chenab not far above its junction with the Indus. The famous 
sacred river of India, the Sarasvati, which now loses itself in the desert 
to the eastward of the Satlej, used to form part of the same system, and 
therefore in primitive times the region was known both to the Hindus 



Il8 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

and the Iranians as the Seven Rivers (in the Veda Sapta Sindhava and 
in the Avesta Hapta Hindu). 

All five of the existing tributaries of the Panjab system are of large 
volume, and through most of their course they are broad and shallow, 
running through sandy plains and constantly changing their channels. 
The outer hills of the Himalayan range, which form the northeastern 
side of the triangular Panjab (the other two boundaries being the 
Hyphasis and the Indus), are covered with forests, as are the deep nar- 
row gorges of the higher mountains through which the Hyphasis bursts. 

200. Himalayan. — The Himalayas constitute the southern slope of 
the great Tibetan tableland, which is a vast rocky proturberance of 
the earth's mass entirely without a counterpart elsewhere. It is nearly 
two thousand miles long, and from one hundred to five hundred miles in 
width. The average altitude of this whole region is between fifteen and 
twenty thousand feet; and the Himalaya itself, the lofty ridge which 
forms its southern parapet, culminates in peaks of nearly thirty thousand 
feet, the highest points on the earth's surface. The Sanscrit word Hima- 
laya means "Realm of Snow" from him, snow, and alaya, abode. The 
short a in Sanscrit always has an obscure sound, like e in merge, and can- 
not receive an accent; but the pronunciation which the rhythm requires 
in our present text— Himala'ya — is tolerated in English usage, though 
gradually disappearing. 

201. Wrack. — The same word as wreck, which in Middle English had 
many diverse spellings, such as wrak, wrek, wrec, etc. It means not 
only "anything cast upon the seashore," but also "the destruction of a 
ship," and finally destruction or ruin of an5' kind. 

202. That autumn-star, the baleful sign of fevers. — In the fall the 
sun passes through the constellations Libra, Scorpio and Sagittarius. 
The reference is doubtless to the bright red star Alpha Scorpionis or 
Antares, sometimes called "the Heart of the Scorpion," by far the most 
brilliant and striking star in this part of the Zodiac. 

203. As two eagles on one prey. — This simile is the subject of very 
general admiration, and several writers have singled it out of the whole 
poem as particularly in the very spirit of the Iliad. 

204. A breeding eagle setting on her nest, etc. — "An admirable illus- 
tration of Arnold's thorough self-discipline, elevated by the study of 
Hellenic models, is seen in the introduction of the comparison of the 
two eagles to illustrate Rustam's ignorance of the desolation which his 
own hand had wrought by the death of his son. . . . Observe how 
his abstention from word-painting fixes the mind upon the one point 
that the comparison is designed to illustrate."— Edinburgh Review, Oct. 
1888, p. 365. 

205. 77/i? valiant Koords. — The Koords, or Kurds, are a class of 
warlike mountaineers, who occupy most of the uplands on both sides of 
the frontier of Western Persia, both on the northwest, towards Russian 
Transcaucasia, and to the west towards the valley of the Tigris, which 
still belongs to the Ottoman empire. They give their name — Kurdistan 
— to a part of the region that they occupy, which is equivalent, in a gen- 
eral way, to the ancient Assyria. 

The Kurds are a mixed race, but seem to be chiefly of a mingled 
Iranian and Semitic stock. There is a class of nobles among them called 



NOTES 119 

Assierti, and a much more nutnberous class, called Guran, are looked 
upon as the descendants of some conquered race. Those of Armenia, 
who have doubtless given their name to the rest, seem to represent the 
Kurdraha mentioned on some of the ancient monuments, and the Kar- 
dukhi, or Gordhyans, of the Greek historians. They have constantly re- 
ceived accessions of outlaws and adventurers from all the peoples of the 
region, and it may be that the Assiertiare descended from noble Assyrian 
refugees. Many of the Kurds lead a predatory life, and have for centuries 
been dreaded as the most dangerous of brigands. 

At a period shortly prior to that of Rustam the mountains which 
separate Persia proper from the Tigris valley w r ere the seat of the highly 
cultured kingdom or province of Susiana (Elam), but the Median moun- 
tains to the northward — a continuation of the same range — were even 
then the home of predatory tribes, who w r ere a constant source of an- 
noyance both to the Assyrians and the Medes on whose frontier they lay. 
'206. Like some rich hyacinth. — This simile has been the object of the 
special admiration of the most esteemed critics. 

207. That the hard iron corselet clanked aloud. — The cuirasses or 
corselets of the Assyrians, Egyptians and other neighboring peoples at 
that day were usually made not of metal but of flax, thickly plaited or 
interwoven, and rendered in a measure weapon proof by cementing 
thickly with glue. Thus they corresponded to the bullet-proof coats of 
the present day rather than to the coats-of-mail of medieval times. 

208. As a cunning workman, in Pek in, pricks with vermillion some 
clear porcelain vase. — Porcelain was invented in China during the Han 
dynasty (1260 to 1368 A. D. ). After the two clayey substances from which 
alone the true porcelain can be made have been ground and mingled 
together into a fine paste, the vase or other vessel is shaped on the pot- 
ter's wheel, then set to dry, after which the color decoration is applied 
and the whole covered with a transparent glaze produced by immersion 
in an almost pure felspar rock fused at an intense heat. The design 
is laboriously picked out by the skilful hand of the artist on ground- 
works of various colors. In producing red hues oxide of copper is gen- 
erally used. 

209. That griffin which of old reared Zal.—The gryphes or griffin 
was described to the historian Herodotus (born 4S4 B.C.) by Asiatic trad- 
ers as a kind of animal resembling an eagle that lived in the territory of 
a Scythian (North Asiatic) tribe called the Arimaspi, beside a river the 
sands of which were golden, and defended the vast quantity of gold that 
existed there, tearing to pieces any one who sought to obtain it. Thence- 
forth it often appears in European story and art, and in later times 
became a favorite heraldic bearing. The griffin is always described and 
depicted as of the eagle family, and usually as having the hinder parts of 
a lion or a serpent. It has been supposed that the story took its origin 
in some way from the gold mines of the Altai mountains (in western 
Mongolia), which were worked even in prehistoric times by the Chudes, 
a great Finno-Samoyedic nation that flourished there before the irrup- 
tion of the Turko-Mongol tribes from the east. 

The traditions of all Central Asia abound in monsters a similar type. 
One of the most familiar subjects of Assyrian sculpture was a symbolic 
animal— half lion and half eagle— a perfect griffin; and the Indo-Iranian 



120 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

traditions give great prominence to bird-like creatures of great size to 
which they ascribe a sacred or prophetic character, such as the Garuda 
of the Hindus, the king of birds and vehicle of the god Vishnu, half 
eagle, half man, and with a golden body. The Iranians honored the 
bird Karshipta as the first prophet of the true religion, and the saena 
" eagle," afterward known as the sin-amrfi, " amru-falcon," and finally 
contracted into simiirgh, was looked upon by them as a great bene- 
factor of the race. 

The Simurgh by which, according to the Persian legend, Zal was 
reared, was probably nothing other than a prince of the Saena house 
who had his castle on Mt. Elburz. The Saena or Simurgh family is 
mentioned in the Avesta, and doubtless derived its name from the eagle, 
or eagle-like creature, borne on its standard. 

210. The Helmund, Hilmendor Helmand, known to the Greek geog- 
raphers as the Etymander or Arimanthus, and called in the Avesta the 
Haetumant, rises in the mountains about thirty-six miles east of Kabul, 
and after flowing for some distance at an elevation of about twelve 
thousand feet, descends into the plain. It loses itself at last in the cen- 
tral depression of Seistan (n. 135), which is usually known as the Lake 
Hamun, though for the greater part of the year the water disappears 
from it almost entirely save at the points near the mouths of the two 
principal tributary rivers, the Helmand and Harut, whose waters spread 
out into a considerable expanse before losing themselves in the sands. 
The lower portion of the river waters Seistan and upon the central and 
upper portions of it was situated in Rustam's time its sister-kingdom 
of Zabulistan (n. 81). 

The Helmand is the most copious river between the Indus and the 
Tigris, and with its tributaries it waters an area of more than a hundred 
and fifty thousand square miles. The word Hilmand is said to mean 
"Embanked River," and a large part of it must from a very remote 
period been drawn off into the surrounding deserts for irrigating pur- 
poses, as at the present time. 

211. The so-called lake of Zirrah, or Zirreh, is another dried up lake- 
basin southward of that of the Hamun, and included like it within the 
territory of Seistan. During the greater part of the year it is a waterless 
plain, encrusted with a salty deposit, and in the wettest seasons it rarely 
becomes more than a swamp, all the rivers that flow in this direction 
from Beluchistan being completely evaporated or swallowed up in the 
sands soon after leaving the hills. A few centuries ago, however, it was, 
like the Hamun lake, a permanent lake of some importance, and it may 
have formed a part of the great interior sea which is supposed to have 
covered a large part of the Iranian plateau down nearly if not quite to 
the historic period (n. 218). 

212. The Murgh-ab and Te-jend rivers rise near the western extrem- 
ity of the Hindu Kush mountains, their sources being separated by the 
highlands known as the Sefkl-Koh, or White Mountains. The Murgh-ab 
is the river of Merv, and all of its waters are used in the irrigating canals 
that water the oasis of that name, which forms a little Turkoman princi- 
pality (the last remnant of " Independent Tartary ''), between Persia, 
Afghanistan and Bohkhara. 

The Tejend, also known as the Heri-rud, or river of Herat, the strong 



NOTES 121 

fortified city of that name being situated near its upper waters. It flows 
westward for a while among the hills until it reaches the Persian line, 
and then stretches in a northerly direction across the frontier of Turkes- 
tan, forming a great interior basin— the principal one between the Cas- 
pian and the Oxus— and finally disappearing in the desert. 

The country watered by these two rivers corresponds to the Margiana 
of Greek and Latin authors. 

213. Kohik is another name for the Zerafshan river, for which see n. 
131, IT 2. 

214. Where the Kalmuks feed their sheep. — Some of the survivors of 
the Kalmuk tribes now pasture their flocks on the banks of the Sir, and 
their remote ancestors under other names ma}- well have done so in 
the time of Rustam, as Western Mongolia, their earliest known habitat, 
is not far away (see n. 162). 

215. Oh, that I saw its grains of yellow silt . . . roll in the cur- 
rent. — The Oxus holds in solution a considerable quantity of earthy 
matter, which gives its waters a bright yellow color, though not interfer- 
ing with their wholesomeness and pleasant taste. 

216. Silt, from the middle English verb silen, to strain or filter, is 
defined as an earthy sediment or fine mud deposited from either running 
or standing water. 

217. Heap a stately mound above thy bones. — Although the Iranian sa- 
cred books (n. 54) forbid the pollution of the soil by the interment of the 
dead, that disposition of the body is known to have been practiced by 
Cyrus, immediately after the time of Rustam. It is probable that this 
law was not introduced until after the time of the reformer Zarathustra, 
who lived, according to Persian tradition, at a period somewhat subse- 
quent to that of our narrative. The custom of" rearing lofty mounds 
above the honored dead is a Scythian or Turanian one, and confirms the 
statement of the Pahlavi books that the Samas were descendants of 
Tar. 

218. Returning home over the salt blue sea.— Firdausi represents 
Kai Kaus as on one occasion traversing with his army a great salt sea in 
order to reach Arabia and Egypt from Seistan. This is supposed to refer 
to the great interior sea, the Kasava (and perhaps the Puiiika) of the 
Avesta, that once spread over a wide expanse in the central plateau of 
Iran, and which was represented, when Firdausi wrote, by lakes Hamuu 
(n. 210) and Zirrah (n. 211). 

Kai Khosru or Cyrus is variously represented as having died in bat- 
tle, or in his palace, or in retirement in the forests; if his decease had 
occurred on the banks of the upper Oxus, where this dialogue took 
place, or elsewhere in Eastern Iran, his body would naturally have 
been carried across the interior sea to his capital city of Pasargardse, 
where he is known to have been buried. 

Firdausi gives no account whatever of the death of Kai Kaus, in 
whose reign he supposes the encounter between Rustam and Sohrab 
to have taken place. 

219. Those black granite pillars, once high-reared by Jemshid in Per- 
sepolis. — The ruins of Persepolis (" the city of Persia "), the capital of 
Persia under most of the Achaemenida?, are called by the modern inhabi- 
tants of Iran Takhti Jamshid, or "Throne of Jemshid," and are sup- 



122 SOHRAB AND RUSTUM 

posed by them to be the remains of the city of Var or Ver, built by that 
primeval monarch, from which the name of Persia (Pars or Fars) is de- 
rived. But the cuneiform inscriptions upon the buildings at Persepolis 
show them to have been the work of the immediate successors of Cyrus; 
and the city appears to have been founded by Darius Hystaspes, or at 
least to have been made by him for the first time the capital of the coun- 
try, in place of Pasargardae (probably the modern Pasa or Fasa). Some 
think that the Var Jemsgard was farther north, near the present towns 
of Demagan and Kasbin (see n. 141); but it is more probable that it was 
not a city at all, but a general name for the whole region finally occu- 
pied by the Iranian people, extending from the Caspian Sea to the Per- 
sian Gulf and eastward to the Pamir. 

The ruins at Persepolis are magnificent and imposing in the highest 
degree. They occupy a great terrace on the mountain-side, at the junc- 
tion of the rivers Pulwar and Kur (Cyrus). This terrace, which is 
reached by a noble staircase of very easy ascent, is covered with the 
remains of a number of colossal palaces and colonnades, all made of 
what is described as an exquisite dark grey marble from the neighbor- 
ing mountams. Among the most majestic of these were the Hall of a 
Hundred Columns, built by Darius, and the vast Throne Pavilion of 
Xerxes. 

Some of the huge pillars are still standing, and innumerable others 
lie prostrate on the sloping surface of the terrace. Many of the fluted 
columns of the pavilion of Xerxes are found to be nearly sixty-four feet 
high, by actual measurement. 

220. Chosrasmian waste. — Chorasmia, which is mentioned by 
Herodotus (fifth century B. C.) as furnishing its contingent to the army 
of Darius, is the modern Khiva (n. 150). Its king became independent 
of the later Achsemenian emperors, and ruled over a great territory 
extending, it is said, even over the steppes to the north and west of the 
Caspian. The term seems, therefore, to have been so extended as to be 
practically equivalent to Turan, which had been several times subju- 
gated by the Iranian princes, but as often threw off their yoke. 

By "Chorasmian waste," our author certainly means to designate the 
desert which surrounds the Oxus, save in places redeemed by irrigation 
and thereby turned into veritable gardens of delight. 

221. Orgunje, that is, Urgenj, the name still borne by the largest city 
on the lower Oxus. It is built on the left bank, about twenty-four miles 
northwest of Khiva, and is called also Yani Urgenj (new Urgenj) to distin- 
guish it from old (Kunia) Urgenj. The latter was ruined in the sixteenth 
century by the shifting of the course of the Oxus; as it was located on 
the channel by which the river found its way to the Caspian sea. This 
channel branches off from the present one at a point just below the New 
City. It is almost certain that in the time of Cyrus and Rustam the 
river flowed into the Caspian, though the changes in its channel since 
that time in the region of the two towns must have been numerous and 
very considerable. 

222. The shorn and parcelled Oxus strains along through beds of 
sand, etc. — At present the Oxus— or what is left of it after supplying the 
irrigating canals by which the country above is watered — begins, soon 
after passing Urgenj, to lose itself in the vast swamps through which, 



NOTES 123 

by numerous and ever-changing channels filled with reeds and swamp- 
grass, it gradually finds its way into the Aral. 

223. This closing description of the Oxus has been the subject of 
much controversy among the critics. It is admitted to be one of the 
most beautiful passages that ever fell from Arnold'spen; but some doubt 
whether the suggestion that the great river flows quietly onwards undis- 
turbed by the love and hate of men is not in false taste, and whether the 
poem should not have more appropriately ended, for example, with: 

"So on the bloody sand Sohrab lay dead." 
(Edinburgh Review, October, 1882.) One critic says that this is one of 
several poems by Arnold containing "fine terminal passages which are 
as much out of place as an account of the fall of Troy would have been 
in Homer's great epic on the wrath of Achilles. Sohrab and Rustum, 
that lofty narrative of a son's death by the hands of an unconscious 
father, should surely have ended with the line — 

'And Rustum and his son were left alone' 
(British Quarterly Review, October 2, 1865, p. 243)." 

But these very respectable cavillers are unquestionably in the wrong, 
from the standpoint of Arnold's own ideals of poetic beauty, for consist- 
ency with which, whatever may be thought of their correctness, he cannot 
well be blamed. The Edinburgh tempers its criticism by the remark that 
"this introduction of nature as solace to over-wrought feelings is emi- 
nently characteristic of the poet." But the true significance of the pas- 
sage is in the principle "art is dedicated to joy," laid down by Arnold 
in his preface of 1853. The last word of a tragic poem should be an 
uplifting one. It must either expand the heart by exhibiting a sublime 
existence or law in the presence of which all human woes appear trifling; 
or, as in this case, calm the spirit with the vision of an enduring beauty 
and repose which the errors and strifes of man cannot mar or interrupt. 

Henry G. Hewlett has well observed that one of the most impressive 
touches of art in the whole poem " is the recurring reference to the pre- 
sence of the great river beside which the tragedy is enacted, that con- 
trasts the calm dignity of its course with the unseemly turbulence of 
human passions, its unexhausted permanence with their transience and 
decay." 



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